a Mirror Shows an Angel's Ashes
by KakaSaku no Ai
Summary: Sakura left the village for a few yrs to train after Sasuke died. When she comes back, she discovers nobody noticed her leave and believed she worked in the hospital. Now she's partnered to Kakashi, and she, Ino and Hinata get a heavy mission. KxS,IxG,NxH
1. Tents and Troubles

"KUSO!"

The birds left the trees loudly after being disturbed by the sound from the middle of the forest. Three people sat in the middle of a clearing around a still smoldering, slightly crackling fire.

Even from a distance the loud noise one of the men was easily heard, though the others were less obvious in showing their presence.

Besides the first man, A second man was in the clearing. Just sitting silently, muttering to himself about idiots and loud people. The third was probably sitting, leafing through a book very loudly, and was reciting different things. The man who was yelling was obviously pacing the clearing, his footsteps heard rather loudly because of the up kick of the leafs

"WHY CAN'T WE DO ANYTHING?. This mission is fucked up!"

Even though the sound of the men was very audible, there was no light. It was like somebody had turned the sun off and had hid the moon. Nothing could be seen, but the sounds suggested that the three men were very close by. It was obvious they were in a forest, because the sounds of the birds and the trees were only occasionally disrupted by the sound of little soft moans, grunts and moving limbs on linen close by.

"Heh, Dickless!"

One of the two men stood up, picked something wooden up to bring to the third person. Muttering was heard before the obvious sound of a departing ninja was heard; sound of leafs rustling on the trees, the thud of shoes on bark, and the swishing sound of fast moving air. A book tome was audibly closed and was put on the ground with a heavy "thud" filling the now silent clearing.

"The enemy will know we're here now, we'll have to leave soon."

The loud man started pacing even harder and gave grunts of something like disapproval. By now the little moans and grunts had turned into heavy panting and coughing. It had become so heavy, that the sound of somebody entering the tent was in-audible. After the coughing fit had passed, it had become hot, so very hot, that the coolness of the gloved hand on her cheek was more than welcome.

Leaning into the hand, a sort of pressure was lifted off, and light was suddenly coming through. The hand left again, taking its welcome coolness away again and making her feel even more sick then before.

Suddenly a bright light came into what she could now identify as a tent, and one of the three men stood in the middle of the light. The man himself wasn't clearly visible due to the blinding light, but on the background stood the second man, pacing and pacing. The big light source went away again in a moment's notice and the man in the tent was now visible.

He had white-silvery hair kept from his face by his Konoha hitae-ate. The forehead protector was covering his left eye, and she could see his visible right eye was a beautiful light grey. The underside of his face was covered by a mask, and he wore a standard jounin uniform, with the leaf insignia gleaming on his forehead protector. Dangling in his hands was the reason she could only hear the men earlier on. The now completely dry towel was being dipped into the bucket the man had brought with him, completely soaking it in water.

He walked over to her and he placed the palm of his hand on her forehead. The visible part of his face was pulled into a concerned scowl.

The pressure of the gloved hand was moved into her hair, moving it successfully out of her face, and the pressure on her forehead was replaced by the towel. Beads of water dripped down her forehead, and he moved his gloved hand to her cheek.

"NARUTO!" The man yelled through the tent flap, "Where are the herbs Sakura said we needed?"

The man named Naruto returned to the tent. He was wearing a black and orange tracksuit, and he had the same Konoha hitae-ate. His only covered his forehead and kept his hair in place.

"I don't know Kakashi-sensei, she doesn't have them anymore and Sai isn't back yet with more. He sent one of his animals to return with some willow bark."

She had seen the man named Kakashi before, he had checked up on her several times. She didn't know how long she had been out of it, but she could gather from the frown on Kakashi's face that she was very, very sick.

Naruto handed the willow bark to Kakashi and he looked at the girl in the tent as he sent Naruto for more water and some cups. As soon as Naruto was gone, he slid one of his hands to her neck, and helped her sit up on the makeshift bed in between his legs. He wiped hairs out of her face and removed his mask from his face. He sighed deeply and let her lean against his chest.

"What has he done to you?"

As a response she snuggled up to his neck and let out a deep sigh.

"n..o…g.."

Kakashi turned his head to the girl in his lap and saw her trembling there, fingering the thin wet cloth that had now fallen off her forehead. It was so different from the strong woman she was only an hour ago.

"K...Ka..kashi-…."

Not knowing why, he gave her a brief kiss on the forehead. It was only meant as a reassuring kiss. He could see the surprise on her face from the initial shock disappear behind a smile. All the feelings of pain left her body numb over the past few hours, and the kiss made her feel more alive. She stopped trembling and let out another sigh. The kiss had some of the pain vanish. She smiled again and started to chuckle.

"What's so funny?" he asked gently while he shifted her in his lap, and she chuckled again. She took a deep breath before answering.

"You've…n..never..done….that before…." Kakashi started to chuckle lightly .

"Hey,… what's.. so…fun.. funny!" he smiled even broader and she saw he had dimples in his cheeks. He was pretty handsome behind the mask he had on earlier.

"Did you mind it ?" she paused and made a very fake thinking gesture before answering.

"No…not…at…all, it's...kinda… nice!"

She smiled a tired smile and he put her arm around his neck. He let out a throaty laugh that made his chest rumble. It brought flutters to her stomach and made her feel so different from before, she felt more secure and safe.

"no….no!.. H.. Help.."

Suddenly, a burning fire started from her neck, spreading to her entire lower body and slowly continued up her neck. She grabbed her neck with the arm around Kakashi's neck and he had to hold her tightly with two arms to prevent her from falling. Whatever it was that was happening to her, it turned the white of her eyes black and her dark green irises turned grey.

She grinded her teeth together to prevent screaming, and Kakashi was muttering to her, but it was falling on deaf ears. No sound could be heard, everything was mute and going slower than normal. Kakashi couldn't hear his own voice. A scream that didn't come from her overpowered all sound. The light in her eyes died out, making her look dead. She let out another scream that started as a growl, and ended as a deep throat howl. In her eyes a neon green fluid filled her irises, making her pupils disappear. At this point Kakashi had to hold her down on the mattress because she was having spasms.

The diamond shaped chakra patch on her forehead started spreading and battling the burning feeling. There where the diamond's arms where spreading, her skin turned red.

Within a few seconds her entire head and bust was red. The howl had now turned into a wail and tears streamed over her face. There where the tears were flowing, steam came off her skin. The skin on her upper arms was red by now, making Kakashi's hands burn off her skin.

Kakashi screamed himself, but no sound came out off his mouth again. His hands had burn wounds on them which were eating away at his flesh. He quickly put his hands on the dripping wet cloth to stop the burning, making slow clouds of steam rise off the flesh.

Naruto walked into the tent with the water and cups, and immediately dropped them at the sight he saw. The smoking hands, the green glowing eyes, the red skin. When the water from the wooden bucket was completely spilled, it slowly flowed towards the bed. As soon as it made contact with the red skin, it started steaming and vaporizing like Kakashi's hands had with the towel. He ran to Kakashi and tried to talk to him, but no sound could be heard. Suddenly everything went completely mute. Everybody was still making the lip movements, but no sound came. The scream died out, but she still appeared to be screaming. Her body was convulsing without anyone to hold her down, shaking and bucking against the small mattress and the floor.

When the sound returned, her eyes glowed up for a moment, making the green contrast even more with the black in her eyes. She stopped screaming and went entirely still.

Kakashi and Naruto's eyes glowed the same color green, before they went mute like the girl before. Kakashi grabbed his eye in pain, while Naruto had to lower to his knees and grab his abdomen.

The muteness went on for seconds, before out of nowhere a low beep started. It started as the sound of a mosquito zooming around, but it quickly grew into the sound of a Boeing 747 flying over. The sound stopped when it couldn't get any worse, only to be replaced by a countdown beeper. It started with a 5 second interval, but it started speeding up, going faster, making everybody feel like it was going to go faster than possible.

The hair of the girl had turned from its natural color to a very light blonde. No sign was left of the beautiful pink hair as the platinum blonde ate away at it. When the hair was completely changed, she went out. Completely unconscious, the beeper slowly died out, and Kakashi and Naruto were able to get up again. Once everything seemed normal again, her body started glowing. It lit the tent with a pure white light, blinding everybody in it.

The light had knocked the three people in the tent unconscious, and when they awoke it was no longer the early morning. The sun was setting and Sai had long since returned. Sai had hauled the three of them out of the tent, laying them on their sleeping bags around the now burning fire.

Sakura stood up, surprised at the burning feeling in her muscles. She hadn't had a muscle ache since her training with Tsunade. She stretched her body for a while, straining the muscles in her body to the max.

"Hello Sai." She turned her body to Sai after sensing he was awake.

"Hello Ugly. All better now I see?" Instead of answering she just nodded and walked over to the artist. He was painting again, and when she looked over her shoulder she could see that he was painting something that looked a lot like a really white bird in the forest.

She looked up at the sky and thought about a few things for a moment. She sighed and turned around to wake up Kakashi and Naruto.

Maybe they could tell her more about what had happened.

Sakura waked Naruto, and she had already sensed that Kakashi was waking up by himself. He stood up, and shook his head like a dog would do to wake up, and walked to his tent. Sakura woke Naruto up and smiled at him.

"Hey," Naruto smiled back at her and yawned his own greeting.

"So, are you better now?" He frowned and gave her a once over.

She nodded. "I guess so. I traced my body and I couldn't find anything so I guess I'm okay."

Naruto looked at her with big eyes. "OKAY? OKAY? Sakura, you friggin' almost exploded this morning by the looks of it! What do you mean with OKAY?"

He had grabbed her arms and had started shaking her a bit before she grabbed his wrists with her own hands and stopped his shaking. "NARUTO!"

He stopped shaking her and stepped back with his hands in the air in a way that said, 'don't hurt me, I already stopped'.

"I'm sorry! I was just really worried you know.."

Sakura looked at the ground and nodded. "I know."

Kakashi came back out of the tent with a small scroll that Sakura recognized as a summoning scroll. She saw that he splashed a bit of blood on it as she had seen him do a million times, and not soon after a small poof of smoke revealed Pakkun.

"Hello Sakura!" The pug smiled broadly from his place in front of her feet.

"Hack..Whut?, Pakkun! You're MY summon you know! Not Sakura's!" Kakashi stumbled from surprise into anger, and he planted his heel into the ground to make his point.

Sakura smiled and scratched the pug behind his ear. "Hello Pakkun! I think it's best if you go to Kakashi now.."

The pug nodded. He gave her hand a small lick before turning over to Kakashi. Kakashi looked at him with his one visible eye, clearly angry. He put his hands on his hips to futher emphasize his point, to which Pakkun turned his puppy eyes on.

The stare off continued for a few seconds, and Sakura sweat dropped at the exchange.

Kakashi gave him one last stare, before he threw a small scroll at the pug which he could effortlessly catch.

"Just take this to Konoha please.." The pug nodded, and gave Sakura a one pawed salute before poofing away.

Sakura smiled at the disobedient act of kindness towards her, and Kakashi just shook his head.

"I sent out a message to Tsunade reporting our return, so we best head back to Konoha."


	2. Cats and Communication

Once they had returned to Konoha, Sakura had thought some things over. All the things that had held her back in Konoha had disappeared. Sasuke was gone, Naruto had told her this was the last mission that he was going to do for a long time. He was going to train under Tsunade to become Hokage in a few years. Sai had applied at the decoding team to work under Shikamaru, and Kakashi was going to train ANBU black ops teams.

Everyone expected her to go back to work at the hospital, to be in and around the village again, just like them, before they could go do their Jounin exams together.

So that was why Sakura stepped into Tsunade's office two days after their last mission.

"Shishou, could I talk to you?" She said after raising the Hokage's attention by knocking on the door.

"Sure, what's on your mind?" Tsunade put her pen down and grabbed her ever present sake cup from one of the drawers of her desk.

Sakura took a big breath before she spoke. "I'm going to go on a trainings mission for four years, whether you'll let me or not."

Tsunade stopped mid-sip and looked over the rim of her sake cup before slowly putting it back on her desk.

"Why?"

"You're going to train Naruto, Sai is going to the decoding team, Kakashi-sensei is going to train ANBU, and Team 7 will be disbanded. Everyone is expecting me to go back to the hospital, but I have nothing left to learn there. I turned sixteen two days ago, meaning that I am legally old enough to make my own decisions, and I want this."

"But why? I can't join you, neither can anyone else, I don't know where to send you."

Sakura smiled. "I can go visit Suna to help them out in the hospital and train with the siblings, afterwards I want to go to Snow to train there, next is Iron and Whirlpool, and I have some friends in Rain too."

Tsunade looked at Sakura intensely for a few seconds. She then rolled her chair back a few inches and grabbed a paper from yet another drawer in her desk. She put it on her desk and grabbed the pen she had put down earlier to sign it.

"Fine, but you keep me updated every step of the way. I'm arranging it so that in a year you'll meet up with Jiraiya for a mission." She finished signing it, and turned the paper around so that Sakura could sign at the bottom.

Tsunade watched her sign the paper before rolling it up. She walked to one of the room's many cupboards and grabbed another scroll from the shelves.

Tsunade turned to hand the two scrolls to Sakura, but before she could grab them she pulled them back.

"This is an opportunity that not many ninja get. This scroll is a summoning scroll. I want you to choose a summon that fits you. This way, I can give you something to train on, and you can keep in contact with me."

Sakura frowned. "Is it the slug summon?"

Tsunade simply smiled and gave her a hug. "Just find out for yourself."

She handed the two scrolls over and Sakura smiled as a thank you. Sakura turned on her heel and made her way to the door, but Tsunade stopped her before she could exit.

"What do you want me to tell your team?"

Sakura smiled. "Nothing, let them find out for themselves." And she exited the room.

Tsunade smiled secretly and labeled a copy of the signed document 'classified' and filed it before Shizune could do so.

16 year old Sakura skipped over the rooftops towards her apartment with a smile on her face. She entered through the window and flopped down on her couch she opened the scroll, letting most of it roll down to the floor.

When it was completely opened, a poof of smoke opened in the middle, and another scroll was there. It was made of red and green paper, and wrapped around it was a little golden rope with a solid gold seal on top of it.

She put it next to her on the couch and looked through the number of animals listed on the scroll. In the middle of the scroll there was a summoning seal, and written around it were a number of weird part was that only one of them was written in italics. It was also underlined and read 'Felinae'. She cut her finger, and put it on 'Felinae', whatever that was., and in the middle of the scroll a new scroll appeared. When she looked back on the summoning scroll, the word Felinae was disappearing.

She sealed the big scroll with all the names closed again and focused on the small scroll in her hand. It was yellow with black uneven dots, tied again with a little gold rope but without the solid golden seal. When she opened it, she could see that she was the first to summon these animals. It wasn't uncommon in this village to be the first to summon a species, especially since there were so many animals in the ninja world.

On the right side of the scroll were the hand signs for the summon, and she memorized them first by quickly running through them. Next, she wrote her name with blood and made a print of all her fingertips on the scroll. She closed the seal again and put it on the coffee table in front of her. She made another cut on her hand, and tried to remember what Kakashi-sensei had always said about the appropriate amount of chakra for a summon.

She channeled the amount to her hands, made the seals and pressed them on the ground. The same summoning seal as from the scroll was forming around her hands and smoke filled the room. When it finally passed, she saw a pack of animals.

Not just ONE animal…. A pack of nine animals, all of different size and color.

There were nine cats sitting in front of her feet.

One was a normal house cat, probably a calico, with a small red vest on bearing the Haruno family symbol. It had beautiful green eyes and probably took the calico thing a bit far. Its overall fur was a light crème color and he literally had small patches of beige, brown and black fur patched on his skin. It was grinning widely with his eyes closed.

Next was an exotic looking cat, with tall ears and brown fur with black dots and stripes. It was probably still a kitten, because it was very small compared to the calico. Wrapped around it's right paw was a piece of red fabric, tied with a tiny golden rope. It had beautiful light grey eyes and very distinctive black facial markings.

A few feet behind them sat an even bigger cat. It was sniffing the floor and shifting his long tail over the floor. In his ears were three small silver rings, one with a fang hanging from it. He had the same eyes as the wild looking cat, and similar markings. He had a yellowish golden fur and his back was covered with leopard-like markings on the back and big white rings around his eyes, making them look even bigger. He had his front shoulders bandaged, and his back legs and hips were bandaged.

Next to him was a cat that looked more like a fox than a cat. It had the same fur and the same type of tail as a fox, but the tail missed the white end and it's muzzle gave him off. His body was completely mark less, and there were a few stripes running from its muzzle to the back of the head. It had a slightly white underbelly, and his ankles were taped up to the elbows.

Behind him sat a big Cheetah, she remembered them from the book she got from Gaara. But this one had a huge mane and had big black stripes running over its back. His whole its jaw was bandaged with tape, but its teeth went through it on the side. The tape went from the mouth, to the back of the neck, and wrapped around the upper neck a few times. The rest of the tape was left to dangle next to its paws.

Just behind them sat a really well kept cat. It had a golden brown fur with a white underbelly and neck. It had black spots and stripes lining it's body, and was about the same size as the calico. It kept shifting his ears and looking around, wary of everything in the room. When he was done looking at the room he looked over to Sakura and gave a meow in greeting. Around his ankles he had what seemed like gloves with metal stripes. It had big, dark, red eyes and had its tail wrapped around his bandage wrapped ankles.

On the left side of the cat with the earrings sat a huge silver grey cougar. These have lived in the Konoha woods for a long time, but this was the first grey cougar she saw that was contracted. It wore a huge green vest without the Haruno symbol. It had a big black spot on his eye, and another stripe running through the middle. It made her think about Kakashi. The other markings even looked like small tomoe. It's tail was completely bandaged and he had huge beautiful bluish grey eyes.

Behind him sat another familiar animal, a huge lynx. It sat with a concentrated look on its face. It could easily go through as a normal lynx. It didn't have tape, scars or special equipment on its body, and the only unnatural marking were the small spots on its muzzle which ran up to his ears.

Just when she thought she had seen them all, a middle-sized elegant cat jumped out behind the lynx. It had huge ears with black stripes, and had the exact same pattern as the small exotic looking cat. Across it's small face was a huge cross scar, making its eyes useless. It's neck was taped , going over to the back, but leaving it's front legs free. It's ears were constantly moving, it was probably how he knew where to go.

Suddenly the calico cat came up and started to talk,

"Hello Sakura, let me introduce us;

I am the Calico Domestic Cat, Maneki-Ne or Mi-Ko, I'll stay with you so you can send messages or errands. This is the Savannah, Kazuko. She's still learning how to talk and will also be staying with you in this realm.

These are your cat summons. We're all from the same family:

The Ocelot_, _Hikaru. The Asian Golden Cat, Kajihana. The King Cheetah, Shun. The Leopard Cat, Katsuo. The Cougar, Kakashi. The Lynx_ , _Masaru. And The Serval,Ren.

Sakura just smiled and walked over to them. She grabbed Kakashi's head and twisted it around to look in his eyes. She followed the markings on his face, and let out a chuckle.

"Nice try Kakashi," She formed a seal with her hands, "Kai!". Nothing happened. All the cats just looked at her with confusion, and she started explaining shortly about how her sensei had the same hair color, markings and expression, and how she thought he was playing a trick on her.

When she was done explaining, she told them about the trainings mission, and all except Mi-Ke, Kazuko and Kakashi vanished back to their realm. She packed her bag, and got some necessary scrolls to put in her bag. She also put little Kazuko in her bag, and put Mi-Ke on her shoulder. She grabbed Kakashi's vest, and teleported them all to the gates.

Sakura gave Mi-Ke the list with summons to return to Tsunade, and showed him the mission order. After that she packed her bag, grabbed all essentials and ran some errands. Once she was finished and Mi-Ke had returned, se got on Kakashi's back and left, only to return one and a half year later.

She did what she promised Tsunade by sending a message every week. She mostly told her where she was, and who she had met. She never told her about what happened after her last mission, and told her that she had gotten Mi-Ke as a summon. She said she had written under the cat realm, as was normal under medic nins.


	3. Information and Ichiraku

When Sakura came back, she had changed quite a bit. She had been gone for four years and she had grown up while she was away. Now, at age 20, she was a fully fledged medic nin.

She still wore much of the same clothing: same boots, same shorts, same gloves. But her old medic skirt was traded for a longer one, mosly hanging over her butt to make sure it didn't get in the way of her feet. It had a really big advantage over the shorter skirt. When she had to charge a kick or punch, the skirt would get in the line of sight of the enemy and she could catch them by surprise. The skirt was held to her body with a heavy leather belt.

The belt was for carrying medicine, kunai, shuriken, scrolls, poisons, senbon and even more. Her shirt was the only thing that hadn't changed, there was only one change to it, it now ended around her midriff instead of waist and it was tied to her body by a piece of tape.

Since she hadn't seen Kakashi and Naruto for four years, she sent them a message using Mi-Ke, to meet at Ichiraku's for lunch.

She still had a few hours to kill, so she decided to report to Tsunade as she had promised her in her last letter. Tsunade greeted her old apprentice with a big hug, and Sakura returned it with love.

"My Sakura! You have changed!" They let each other go and Tsunade gave Sakura a once over. Sakura smiled, and turned on her heel so Tsunade could see what she had changed into. She had let her hair grow out and it was now gathered in a high ponytail with one loose bang hanging over her face like Ino used to have in her Genin years.

They talked a bit about where she had been, what she had been up to and what she had learned so that Tsunade could put it in Sakura's file.

"But I have to go, I promised to meet up with Kakashi-sensei and Naruto for lunch" She stood up from her chair.

"Sure, I do have one more important notice, but I'll send it to you by letter if I don't see you soon." Sakura nodded, before she opened the window and jumped to the street. She walked over to Ichiraku, followed by Tsunade's scream of 'USE THE DOOR!' out of the window she just used as an exit.

Once she had reached Ichiraku, she could already see Naruto sitting on one of the Restaurants chairs. She ducked under one of the restaurant's flaps and took the seat next to Naruto. He was so caught up in his conversation with Ayame that he didn't notice her. She placed her order with Teuchi-san and waited for Naruto to finish. Naruto got a plate of ramen in front of him and that was the moment that he finally shut up.

"Hi Naruto, you've changed!" Naruto's eyes turned wide and he tackled Sakura to the ground.

"SAKURA-CHAN! HI" Sakura groaned and laughed at the same time. Naruto helped her up and she got back onto her chair. She was right, he had changed, he had let his hair grow out, making it lose its spikiness and making it more straight. One bang hung over his face, much like Kakashi had in his younger days, but longer. Two shorter ones covered his ears and a bit of his face. The hair still had its blondeness, and was kept neatly under the band of his forehead protector.

It was the same forehead protector he had bought with Jiraiya when they were away for training until he was 16. The rest of his long hair was kept in a ponytail at the back of his head. It was slightly spiky at the hair band, but quickly turned straight again. He was dressed in a white and red robe, tied to his body by a black sash around his waist. It had a knot at the back, and the rest of the fabric was left flailing down like a tail. Like any other Jounin, he wore the standard uniform underneath.

She noticed that Kakashi had entered before Naruto asked her a question

"So how's work? " He asked before continuing to slurp up his noodles.

"Work?" Sakura asked confused. Teuchi handed her her bowl of ramen while Kakashi greeted them and took the seat next to her.

"Yeah, at the hospital. I guess that they finally gave you some time off since you've finally got some time for us?"

Sakura looked at Kakashi and he just gave her his famous eye crinkle. Naruto and Kakashi must think that she has been working at the hospital for a long time now. It pained her a bit before she was able to recover.

"I.. ehm.. I've been on a two month mission to Grass, so I don't know how it's going at the hospital. You should ask Hinata." Sakura didn't know why, but she felt the urge to keep her mission to herself for now.

However, they might know whether she was lying because she got two incredulous stares after her explanation.

"Hinata has been working at the academy for the past year.." Naruto said.

"Really? Wow, I must have been really busy to miss THAT. I should catch up with her soon.." Sakura said awkwardly. Naruto accepted the answer, but Kakashi's stare lingered a bit longer. She dug into her food to break the staring contest, and Kakashi placed his order.

They talked about everything that happened these past few months and Sakura managed to get some information about everyone without screwing up her cover. Almost everyone was alive and well, except for Asuma and Jiraiya. She heard that Kurenai had been pregnant and had a very healthy two-year old by now, and that Shikamaru was foster-parenting him. Neji and Shikamaru were the only ones who had been promoted to Jounin, and most of the rest was still, like her, a chuunin.

"Hey guys, I want to ask you something. I recently had a dream about our last mission, but I don't remember much of it. Because it was so weird I wanted to know what happened, my memory is kinda gapped."

Naruto tried to answer, but sort of forgot that he had a mouth full of noodles, and spat half of the broth out of his mouth and partly on Sakura.

"You know what, let's just eat first and talk somewhere else, okay? haha.." Naruto nodded and Kakashi 'hmmed' to let his approval be known. He was actually kind of silent. While Naruto was slurping away, she turned towards Kakashi to talk to him.

"So, how are you doing?" She smiled, but it faded away when Kakashi looked up from his bowl for only two seconds.

"You've changed."

"Yeah, not so bad huh? You should see me spar!" She smiled again, and he dropped his chopsticks.

"Cut the happy-go-lucky act Sakura. It doesn't suit you." He said without looking at her.

Her mouth fell open and she turned around to see if Naruto had heard the same. Naruto was chatting with Ayame again, so she turned back to Kakashi.

"What do you think that you know about me, huh!" Sakura jabbed a finger in his shoulder to make him look at her. "You don't know shit!"

He looked her straight in the eye, and Sakura didn't know whether to be happy that he was finally looking at her, or be scared.

"I know you, Sakura. People can change their outward appearance, but never their true character. You haven't hit or got angry at Naruto once since you arrived here. This is a mask that you're putting up."

Her mouth fell open again, and she broke the stare she was giving him in favor of picking at her food.

"You don't know me anymore Kakashi. I am no longer that helpless medic." She slapped some cash on the counter and waited for the boys to do the same before exiting the restaurant.

"You weren't that helpless medic when you left either." She heard being whispered into her ear by the wind, because Kakashi was still inside trying to make Naruto pay for his meal.

Naruto exited Ichiraku's, closely followed by Kakashi, and she started walking around.

Nothing much had changed over the years. Some buildings had been destroyed and replaced, and some stores had changed, but the overall lay out was exactly the same. When they reached the academy she stopped. The academy building had grown. It was a holiday, so there were no kids present, and she could see a building squad building a new wing to the building.

The tree from their genin days had grown, just like they had, but there was one thing still the same,

The swing.

Naruto tentatively walked towards it, and pulled at one of the ropes to see if it could hold any weight. When he was sure it would hold, he slowly sat down and started to swing a bit.

Even though nothing had changed while she was gone, actually everything had changed.

She could see it. Naruto had exactly the same expression on his face as the time that he had failed his genin exam, and Kakashi was staring at the sky with his book nowhere in sight. She sat down near the base of the tree and Kakashi joined her. She crossed her legs and started the conversation.

"Do you guys remember our last mission?

Their last mission as Team 7 was a total failure. Sasuke had cornered Sakura and had talked to her about how he was going to torture her before her death. What he didn't know, was that a furious Kakashi, Naruto and Sai had just broken through his electric barrier.

Especially Naruto couldn't handle watching Sakura being beaten to death, His red eyes making Kakashi wary about what was going to happen. So when Naruto tried to jump through the barrier, Kakashi couldn't stop him. Naruto went into 6 tailed mode, easily handling the electric charge and started to destroy the entire cave which held 'Team Hawk's' hideout.

Kakashi got Sai's Katana off his back, Sai himself falling dead due to the betrayal seal he got in ROOT. It was placed in your neck and would kill any betrayer as soon as he spoke of classified subjects. As Danzo worked with Orochimaru, the seal killed Sai as soon as he entered the cave without Danzo's authority.

Kakashi charged the short blade with lightning chakra to make it sharper, and threw it at Sasuke. It went right through his head, and the point of the katana hit Sakura right in the middle of the diamond shaped chakra seal.

Even though the wound was shallow, hers and Sasuke's blood dripped in her eyes, making her lose focus and she let Sasuke slip from her hands. Sasuke's body leaned forward, making the poisoned katana cut Sakura in the side of her neck. Sakura could stop the katana from cutting her neck off, and started healing the patch immediately.

By pushing her chakra into the poisoned wound, she was able to identify the poison. But without any water to extract the poison, she couldn't do much except opening her medkit and putting two empty labeled jars on the right page of her poison encyclopedia. This way, Team 7 could find the right herbs and hopefully make the antidote to cancel the poison.

"Yes, you healed from the poison miraculously by some sort of weird jutsu." Naruto offered.

Sakura shook her head. "No, at least I never used a jutsu that mission."

She looked at Kakashi who put his hands up in the air and shrugged his shoulders.

"Can you check me over? Because the only difference that I have felt since then is that my chakra supply has shrunk."

Kakashi nodded and moved his headband over while Naruto summoned some fox chakra.

She stood up and moved a few feet away so they could get a better look.

"Well I can see where that chakra went.." Kakashi said.

Sakura raised an eyebrow. "Well?"

"Your hair. It's in your hair." Naruto added.

Sakura looked at him incredulously. "My hair. In my hair. Naruto, Kakashi, this isn't funny! I'm being serious and you keep playing games…"

"We're not. Try pulling some chakra from your hair."

Sakura sighed, and pulled some hair over her shoulder to look at it "There is no chakra reserve in people's hair, I know that for sure, but I'll try."

She now noticed the fine strands of blonde in her hair. For every fifty pink hairs, there was about one blonde one. You could only see it from up close, so it was barely visible. She could even feel the chakra in her hair more than normally. It was different from her normal chakra pattern, but still nearly identical.

She tried pulling on it, forcing it through her chakra pathways to her chakra pool, and she felt that something had changed. She looked up to Kakashi and Naruto. "Guys... Something's weird.." she took a kunai from her pouch and used the metal as a mirror. What she saw was familiar in a weird way. Then she recognized it.

Her mother...

She always had had her father's eyes and her mother's hair. Now, it changed. The blonde strands became more obvious, still not very visible, but definitely there. Her eyes had turned a very light grey, looking like they did in the vision before they filled with the green poisonous looking liquid. She held the kunai closer to her face, eager to get a better look.

What she saw was weird, her eyes weren't light grey, they were mirrors! And in them she could see images flowing. In the right one, the slit demonic red eyes of the Kyuubi were slightly visible. In the left one she found the same one, but also a Sharingan with one tomoe.

She looked at Kakashi and Naruto, and they both tried to say something else at the same time. Kakashi tried to say 'you have my eyes!' because he saw his own dark grey eye and Sharingan staring back at him. The only difference was the count of tomoe. There was only one in Sakura's, but he had all three.

Naruto tried to say 'what the fuck!' (but in a much louder voice, which made Kakashi happy that there were no children around) as he saw Kyuubi's eyes instead of Sakura's emerald green ones.

Sakura herself was turning a little bit dizzy, she could see lots of different things, and a lot of visions twisting and turning before her eyes. They were very different ones, some of a family, a happy Konoha and a young Kakashi. But she also saw pictures of murder, torture and a little beat up Naruto which wanted to make her vomit. So instead, she chose another option.

She passed out cold.

When she woke up again, she realized they were still in the same spot. Deeply confused about what had happened and why she was here, she looked around. When she finally realized what had happened, she got up and pinched the bridge of her nose. She had a headache which she had a feeling wasn't going to go away any time soon.

She was lying with her legs crossed over Naruto's legs who was lying on the dirt a few feet away. She herself was curled in Kakashi's arms, head tucked under his chin, his arms around her to hold her in place. Her hair was sprawled over the ground, but miraculously not dirty.

'Why the heck am I thinking about my hair in a situation like this?'

She wiggled out of Kakashi's grasp, trying not to wake him, and stretched out. She felt her bones pop into place and a delicious stretch in her muscles.

Alarmed by some sound, she turned around to see Kakashi do the same thing.

"I'm sorry, did I wake you?"

"It's okay, but I want to talk about something"

"Do you mean about the kiss?" Kakashi flinched while Sakura didn't blink an eye. "What? It did happen, so let's at least act adult about it." Inner Sakura was meanwhile standing open mouthed, just staring at Kakashi. 'Jesus, the man reads fucking porn in public. You would think he could handle some real life action..'

"I just don't want you to think that you're obligated to me or something like that…"

Sakura just stood there, trying to process this information. In Kakashi's head the wheels were spinning furiously, and somewhere in his big 'genius' brain, it registered that 'this might not be the right thing to say'

"Kakashi it was a fucking kiss to the forehead, what did you think we did?"

"Sakura, it wasn't supposed to happen. This just doesn't fit in a normal teacher student relationship. I just don't want you to get ideas."

A long silence ensued and again something registered in Kakashi's mind.

'she could break all my bones and put me in a coma if she wanted to..' He gulped, loudly. Sakura just laughed.

"You do realize this was four years ago, not yesterday?"

Slightly confused by the question, he kept silent. "Yes why?"

"Because, obviously, your ego is big enough to think any woman would obsess over you after the merest kiss. So you obviously haven't considered that I might have fallen in love or married some other man in those four years." She walked over to the tree and sat at its base, staring at Naruto's sleeping body "And Kakashi…"

"Hm?" She shifted her view from Naruto's body to Kakashi and she glared furiously at him.

"If you think I am a fangirl, you are seriously wrong." The glare worked on almost everybody, but this time not on Kakashi. He knew he had made a huge mistake by not choosing his words properly earlier on.

"I'm sorry if I offended you Sakura, but it hasn't fallen lightly on me that I still had my teaching role back then, and I still acted that way."

"Apology accepted Kakashi, but you should know that I wouldn't have let you if I didn't completely trust you not to mess around with me."

"But still.."

"No buts, Kakashi." She moved her hair out of her face and behind her ears. "You know, when I was sixteen, and we became a squad again, Ino asked me if I had seen the face under the mask. I said 'no' and she said she was sure you were really handsome under there. She wanted to make a bet with me. If I could seduce you, and get a look under your mask, then she would ask Gai-Sensei out for a date."

"Really?" Kakashi felt baffled and he could feel respect growing for the blonde kunoichi. He knew that if Sakura had tried it, she would have succeeded. The events on the mission already said as much. But she didn't do it. "Why didn't you?" she looked up, surprised that he would ask. It was almost as if he asked her to do it anyway. "Because I respected you, and I wouldn't put you in a situation where you would feel uncomfortable."

It was silent for a few moments before Sakura sighed and continued.

"Look, lets just forget that it happened and continue the same way okay? It's nothing that I can't solve alone.."

" I don't believe you. You can't solve something like this so easily. We're equals, we're on the same team, it'll come up again."

"I did it with Sasuke and I'll pass this exactly the same way."

"Sasuke died, you will never see him again. Me on the other hand, you'll see me every day."

"I'm doing solo missions from now on." Sakura started to get annoyed with Kakashi. He knew that Team 7 had been disbanded, and still he felt the need to rub it in.

"No you're not. Tsunade made me and you partners. I'm not leaving you alone again" Kakashi raised his gaze to the sky."You know I still regret leaving you there on the floor right?"

"If you hadn't left me there, you couldn't have sealed the Kyuubi back and everybody would have died. Beside, I'm still alive so it's okay." Sakura said with a tone to her voice.

Kakashi looked at Sakura, and she could still see the regret in his eye. She let out a big sigh and got up on her knees. She moved closer to him and grabbed his face with both her hands. "it's O-KAY, you got it?" she shook his face a bit. Just to make him focus on the words better. She often did it with younger patients to make sure they knew not to climb trees with a broken arm. He just nodded, and they just looked at each other for a long time.

It must've looked really funny, to see a elite jounin crouching on the ground, his arms balanced on his legs, and his face held between the hands of a elite medic nin who sat on her knees. her nose was no more than an inch removed from his and they were staring at each other for at least a minute.

Suddenly she leaned in and placed a small reassuring kiss on his forehead like he had done four years ago, got up and moved back to Naruto. She tapped his shoulder and got him to wake up.

She threw one last look at Kakashi and gave Naruto a 'Good morning' before using the tree as a leverage to get on the rooftops.

Kakashi watched her speed away as he kicked Naruto so that he would get up.

'_Don't do that. It's addictive' _He could only think.


	4. Scrolls and Scars

After the two of them had left, Sakura came back to the swing to think about how Kakashi was right. She had changed and she was far from happy-go-lucky.

In the past, she dreamed of having children, being married, and giving up her career to support a household. These dreams were mostly filled with Sasuke, but Sakura had been realistic after the twentieth rejection. If Sasuke ever began to like her, It probably wouldn't last. So she began dreaming about HER life, one that didn't have Sasuke in it.

The goals were the same; children, marriage and giving up her career to support her ninja husband.. But when Sakura's first solo assassination mission was over, and she stood eye in eye with a crying child in the doorway, she knew that none of those dreams or plans would ever see the light.

After Naruto left to train under Tsunade to be her successor, and Kakashi went back to the ANBU squad, she suddenly had no family left. She disguised it as 'nothing here to keep her bound to Konoha', but that was what had actually prompted her to go. Her father had died before she was born, and her mother hated her. When she was younger her mother used to hit her, but once she turned ten, Sakura slapped her back with all of her force and ninja muscles, and she never slapped her again. Her mother left the country, and when Sakura was twelve, she received a letter stating that her mother had frozen to death in some no-man's land.

Because she was 10 years old back then, she was permitted to live on her own. And she went home that day, only to slip into a month long depression. Iruka helped her out of it by getting her to read books. Sakura lived on without parents. But unlike Naruto and Sasuke, she didn't whine about not having any.

Just like Naruto, she thought Sasuke was lucky to have even had 'real' parents. And just like Sasuke, she thought Naruto wasn't any good, he slacked on schoolwork to do pranks. Now that she knew why she could understand it. But in the Academy, she despised him for whining about losing his parents, instead of pushing himself to become strong, to make sure his children wouldn't have to be in the same situation.

When she got into Team 7, she learnt that knowledge was nothing without the power to make any good of it. She wanted to become strong, but unlike Naruto and Sasuke, she didn't have the talent for ninjutsu. So when Team 7 fell apart, Tsunade accepted her as an apprentice and made her work hard. She made all the things said about hard work sound like something she could do in her sleep.

She got far, much farther than Naruto and Sasuke had gotten in the years of Team 7. She passed her Chuunin exams together with Hinata and Ino, and Team 7 got reunited, renamed the Retrieval Squad. It's only focus was retrieving missing nin's from foreign countries. When Sasuke died, one of the village's last missing nin's, there was no reason to keep them bound.

She had lost her family again. The first time Team 7 split up, she knew they would be reunited again. But this wasn't anything like that. They split up because of Sakura. She still found herself lacking, and with Kakashi training the ANBU squads, Naruto under Tsunade's care, and Jiraiya travelling, there wasn't anybody left in the village to teach her. So she left.

When she returned to Konoha, she was 20 years old, completely with a new outfit and a new attitude. Her family was with her at all times, because her summons were her family now, and nobody could change that.

Sakura just sat there on the swing, looking much more depressed than Naruto had after he failed the academy exams. She motioned for Kazuko to get out of the tree and lay down in her lap. The two of them just sat there for a long time, and Sakura just thought about how her dreams were now so different from before. And made a silent wish for them to come true.

Sakura slowly got off the swing, tired of thinking about the past and other depressing things. She walked back to her apartment and threw the reserve bed out of the guestroom. She piled a dozen pillows inside, and summoned her cats. She figured she should put her window open. It faced the wood, so they could freely roam there. Next she knew, it was 10 o'clock, and she was tired enough to sleep for a week.

When she woke up again, she decided to go and get some coffee with Ino.

"How did your mission go?"

"Ah, can't tell, classified."

Ino smiled. "As usual. So what are you doing today?"

"I'm gonna train a bit and I have a dinner appointment with Naruto and Kakashi."

Sakura cringed, immediately realized her mistake. Ino had the tendency to invite herself and Sakura loved her too much to say no.

"Cool, can I come?" Sakura smiled. She, Kakashi and Naruto would have to talk later.

"Sure Ino, I'll tell Naruto and Kakashi and then I'm going to go train. I'll see you at my apartment tonight?"

"Yeah sure. Thanks for the coffee by the way. See you tonight!" Ino smiled and skipped away. Sakura sighed and walked over to Ichiraku's where she would definitely find Naruto to tell him the bad news.

After notifying the boys she left for the training grounds. She trained as long as she could before she had to get home and shower for dinner with the guys and Ino.

After a relatively long shower, she walked into the guestroom and ushered the cats out to make sure Ino wouldn't notice them. She grabbed her regular gear minus the medic apron and fixed her hair up in her normal high pony tail.

She heard the door open and Ino yelled an hello in her general direction.

"Hi Ino, wait one second, I'll be right out!" She put the last of her stuff on and walked out into the living room where Ino had made herself at home.

"You ready?" She poked Ino in the neck with her finger and smiled when she jumped up. Sakura knew all her weak spots.

"Humpf, don't do that! Yeah ofcourse I'm ready stupid. I was waiting for you!" Ino grumped and poked Sakura's side.

"Okay, okay, let's just stop and go before we're the only ones who are late!"

They both looked at each other and smiled before exiting the apartment and locking the door. Once they arrived at Ichiraku's they could see Naruto and Hinata sitting at a table for six.

"Ha! They look cosy. Maybe we should just leave them and go eat somewhere else!"

"Don't be stupid Ino, Naruto already told me that Hinata was coming along. They're expecting us anyway!

By now Kakashi and Genma had walked into the restaurant, completely missing the girls standing at the window. Sakura and Ino walked in and Ino motioned for a waiter.

"What is HE doing here?" Ino yelled, pointing an angry finger at Genma.

"I invited him along for company. Sakura and Naruto brought someone so why couldn't I?" Kakashi said with his normal stoic expression.

Ino sighed, knowing he was completely right, again. She motioned a waiter to the table, still standing next to a sitting Naruto.

The table was missing two chairs and Sakura an Ino had to ask for more chairs

"Excuse me, do you have two more chairs for us?"

"I'm sorry ma'am, but we're fully booked and you reserved a table for four."

"You haven't got any chairs left?" the waitress nodded no, a little intimidated by the purple clothed kunoichi in front of her.

Sakura frowned and put her hands on her hips. "But where are we going to sit?"

The waitress stumbled over her words before answering "I'm sorry ma'am I can't help you any further." After that she swiftly walked away before Ino or Sakura could say anything.

Sakura looked at Ino and when Ino looked back with an annoyed look, Sakura just shrugged her shoulders. Ino let out a big sigh and threw her hands in the air.

"Well, where is Yamato-sensei when you need him, huh?"

Sakura turned to the table and looked at the people who had already claimed a seat.

"Well I don't know about you, but I'm making somebody share his seat. Kakashi?"

"Yes? Oh. You meant me?" she nodded, and motioned for him to move his arm so she could sit in between his legs. Ino just looked at her like she was expecting her to arrange something. Sakura just looked at the seat on the right with Genma on it. Genma looked at Ino expectantly, patting his lap and grinning broadly.

"Ehm, can't we go to another restaurant or something? It's really a stupid thing to sit on each other's lap for dinner."

Kakashi had slowly snuck his arms around Sakura's waist, covering his face with his Icha Icha book. Sakura just looked around the table, knowing what he did, but she couldn't act on it without making a scene. Kakashi moved his book for a moment to answer Ino.

"Well, Sakura just came back from a long mission, so she could choose. And you know that Naruto won't eat anything other than Ramen."

Ino looked desperate for a way out, seeing no exit and knowing Kakashi was right AGAIN. When Genma patted his lap again for the second time, she gave in.

She slowly moved to sit down on his lap, only to jump up again because Genma had pinched her butt. Kakashi and Sakura sat across them, silently laughing.

"Sorry, I couldn't help myself" Genma grinned broader than a Cheshire Cat. "Whenever I see an ass so fine, I can't help but pinch it to see if I'm dreaming or not."

"You're doing it wrong anyway, and you better help yourself, Or I'm getting YOU helped!" her fingers made a cutting gesture and Genma stiffened in his seat. Ino sat back happily and Genma didn't do anything pervy for the rest of the dinner.

Sakura might have said that Ino actually looked quite content sitting there, and she noticed that they weren't the only table where people actually sat on each other's lap.

"I haven't noticed that Ichiraku had gained so much popularity. It's booming business for them." She said to Naruto.

"Yeah, it's amazing. Teuchi-san has been doing so well that he has been able to slip me a few free meals every once in a while." He nodded happily and continued slurping his noodles.

Sakura couldn't help but feel sorry for him. Ever since Tsunade had become Hokage he had gotten a royal paycheck every month, but his landlord still charged him way too much. Maybe she had to visit him someday soon and let her fists tell him what a better price would be.

At the end of dinner

Ino got even with Genma just before they were leaving. While getting up, Ino had pinched him so hard in the butt that he knocked the table over and had to stay behind to clean up. He of course blamed Ino for it and said that she had to help.

Kakashi, Naruto, Sakura and Hinata just let them argue about who was going to clean this mess up and paid the bill and left silently. Outside they could still hear Genma and Ino's bickering. Sakura and Hinata started laughing and shared a secret look.

"Hey Hinata?" Hinata stopped laughing and turned to Naruto. "Can I walk you home?"

Despite her heavy blushing, she answered him in a steady voice."Sure Naruto, I would like that."

They walked away in the direction of Hinata's house and Kakashi and Sakura were left standing there.

"Well, seeing that Naruto is taking Hinata home, I might as well be a respectable adult and walk you home."

Sakura rolled her eyes. "You plus respectable gives an error on my calculator. Plus, I'm an adult myself so you don't have to walk me." She turned away from him, looking up into the trees.

Kakashi gently grabbed Sakura at the elbow, "We still have some talking to do you know."

Sakura looked him in the eye for a few seconds. She sighed and nodded her okay.

"Fine, just give me a second."

She put both fingers in her mouth and let out a high and short whistle. In the tree above her, a branch moved and a huge cat came out. It came up to Sakura's knees and let out a small meow. Sakura gave the cat a good stroke before talking.

"Could you get the pack together? There's someone you should meet. And let Mi-Ke summon an elder please, I need some advice"

"Is it him we meet? He is dog person. Shui won't like." the cat talked a bit weird. He couldn't seem to form the words like a human. It reminded Kakashi of training his youngest dog to talk.

"Good point. Put Shui on the chain please." the cat went back into the tree and Sakura started to walk towards her house. Kakashi quickly matched her strides and together they walked towards Sakura's home.

"I didn't know you had signed a contract."

"You don't know a lot about me. That was Kazuko, the youngest of my cats. I'll show you the rest later."

Kakashi and Sakura passed the hospital and the mountain faces. They filled the time with low chatter.

"So how was your mission?" he started walking with his hands in his pockets, and soon she matched his steps. "It was fine. The travelling took rather long compared to the rest of the mission. It only took me a week to gather info and then two days for infiltration." Kakashi just looked at her with his mysterious one-eyed gaze.

"Sakura, I know that you were gone longer than two months. You were gone for four years for god's sake. People notice.." Sakura ignored his comment and looked up to the skies. The stars were very bright tonight.

"Don't you think our plan worked nicely tonight?" Sakura said, and Kakashi sighed over her obvious ignoring of his comment.

Earlier that day, Sakura had gone to Kakashi with her plan to stop Ino, and she told him Ino's plan. Her idea was to invite Genma, and arrange it so that she had to sit on his lap because there were no seats left. Kakashi agreed, but thought that Ino would rather sit on the floor than on Genma's lap or that she would ask for another chair. Sakura argued that with Ino's pride, she would rather sit on someone's lap than on the floor. And that with asking for an extra chair she would spill her own plan.

Kakashi invited Genma, Sakura told Naruto to pick up Hinata, and Ino herself arranged that there were no seats left. And when Kakashi thought about the plan, he thought that maybe Sakura was hooking Ino up.

"But don't you think leaving those two alone was a bad idea?"

Sakura snorted, "Yeah, but don't you think they really suit each other?"

"I knew you did it for another reason.."

"But I really think they could work out."

"Sakura, Genma would just use Ino and discard her again. He's a womanizer."

"I know, but so is Ino. She always plays around with boys and leaves them later on. Somehow, I have a feeling this is going to work. And if not, doesn't matter because they both aren't really serious about it."

"Hmm, maybe you're right." Kakashi looked at Sakura to see if she was serious about Ino and Genma, and again he noticed her longer hair. It was so different seeing her like this. He didn't dare even thinking it, but it made her look rather weak. To any other person it would be completely different. Any man would say she looked good, and that it made her look rather seductive. But Kakashi could only see a taller and more filled out version of the twelve year old (naïve-Sasuke-loving) girl he taught.

"Don't you wonder how you got this…thing?"

"Of course I do, I even did some research. Apparently this happens in my family line every fifth generation"

"How do you know that it's that what made this happen?" by now, they had reached Sakura's house and she was already fumbling with her keys. "Do you want to come in? I'll show you the scroll I found." Kakashi nodded yes and Sakura went in, leaving the front door open.

"You want any tea?" Kakashi closed the door and went into the living room. He hadn't been here before and was looking around her new apartment. He yelled a 'yes please' into the kitchen and looked at the impressive bookcase. It lined the complete southern wall of the apartment, which was about 2.5 meters high and about 4 meters wide. It was filled with scrolls and some medical books.

The only part of the wall that wasn't filled with scrolls was the top part of the case and the bottom part. There, there was a wooden board about 5 centimeters high. It separated the bookcase from the floor and was made of really expensive looking wood. Sakura came back in the room and handed him a cup of Darjeeling tea. "It's big huh? Still, I need all the space with my research."

Kakashi didn't know what she meant with research, but he would find out later. "What was this scroll you were talking about?" Sakura gulped down a bit of tea and walked towards the bookcase. She ran one finger over the middle rib in the bookcase and the expensive looking board gave way to reveal a load of other scrolls. She took one out and Kakashi saw that it was yellow with weird black looking dots and a golden seal to hold the rope tight. She handed it to him and he read through it.

'_Haruno clan specifics_

_Apparently there is a yet unknown kekkai genkai running in the Haruno blood. Because the family is small with approximately one or two children every generation, it is unknown if the kekkai genkai is a family bloodline, or a otherwise gained ability. It appears every five generations , and only makes itself known in the females thus making sure there will never be two users. _

_Research in past generations show that there has been no mixing with other kekkai genkai, and reproducing has always been between the same element users. It hasn't been named as of yet, but I predict that the next user will find a suitable name. I predict, with the latest info, that a new user will be born in about thirty years' time._

_Specifics on the ability_

_The ability will manifest itself around puberty in a life threatening situation. If this does not occur, the ability will never surface, and will be passed on as a recessive gene for the next user._

_The ability consists of different levels and users may unlock the ability on different levels that are directly linked with the mortal peril the person is in._

_The first level consist of growth of a chakra in an unordinary place. The last user had a chakra pool gathered in her nails, and the one before that had a pool in her lower back. _

_The second level consist of a doujustu. The second level is started by a diminishing in the normal chakra level to build another chakra pool behind the eyes much like the Sharingan, Byakugan and Rinnegan have. This gives the wielder the power to copy ones most important facet. The eyes are known to do this automatically when activated, and wielders must be very careful with this feature as it takes a huge amount of chakra to perform. Downside of this technique is that with the facet, also all unnatural markings are copied, such as tattoos, chakra infused scars and appearances of other kekkai genkai. Thus a user may appear to have the Byakugan while opposed to an Hyuuga, while when faced with an Uchiha she may appear to have the Sharingan. This level assures the ability to copy one technique of any element, and can be executed no matter what element the user actually is. Thus a water user will be able to produce fire element attacks and so on._

_The third level consists of an increase in doujutsu power. Instead of merely copying techniques and markings, the user can easily see through chakra infused techniques and see what they consist of. This is especially useful when confronted with genjutsu, as the doujutsu will be immune to any. However, this gives the user direct information about the opposer, such as chakra type, stamina, specialization, village and other specifics._

_I obtained this information from my own sensei, who in her words is the second to have unlocked the third level. Thus it is unclear under which circumstances the third level manifested. Hers manifested when she was in childbirth, however the user before her unlocked it when she got married. This implied that the third level is unlocked by social situations._

_Sarutobi Hiruzen, Jounin Researcher Specialist _'

Kakashi let out a big sigh and moved a hand through his hair in frustration. "How did you get this scroll?"

Sakura lowered herself down to the couch, nodding her head for him to seat himself too. "Yeah, thats the weird part." Kakashi sat down waiting for her answer. "It jumped out of the Konoha Summons scroll, and when I put it in my bag, it disappeared. I found it in that same bag again the morning of my arrival in Konoha. I tried to open it, but I couldn't…"

Kakashi shook his vest off, making himself comfortable. He hung it over a nearby chair, and the action made Sakura very aware of the man in front of her. "How did you open it then?"

Sakura shrugged her shoulders, "This morning it rolled open when I walked in the door. I left it on my coffee table, and when I walked in it just rolled open." Kakashi looked back at the scroll and tried to decipher what it meant.

"Well do you know what level you are on?" He said while he lifted his headband up, revealing his Sharingan.

"I think I am at level two, but I wouldn't know because I haven't fought anyone yet."

Kakashi tried to test something. He silently got a kunai out of his ninja pouch, readying himself to throw it at Sakura. Maybe this little bit of danger could make a change. With a flick of his wrist he threw it at Sakura, and immediately he could feel the burst of chakra next to him. When the kunai reached Sakura's forehead she catched it between her two fingers. She grabbed the kunai in the good of her palm, and crushed the metal in the palm of her hand. She lifted her head, and Kakashi could see the killer intent in her eyes before he felt it flood over him.

"Kakashi," her words were dripped in venom. "Why did you throw a kunai at me?"

Suddenly, her eyes flashed, and her hair got blonde highlights in it. "Wow," Kakashi breathed out,

Sakura let out an evil chuckle. "Seeing your own death Kakashi? Is it so amazing it makes you gasp?"

Kakashi was actually getting a little scared by her act, and quickly got another kunai out of his pouch again, holding it in front of her face. She looked pretty much like a dog who saw himself in the mirror for the first time; very surprised that the thing in the image was mimicking her. She took hold of the mirror, making sure her chakra was still gathered in her chakra pool.

"Kakashi,..my eyes…" He looked into her eyes and a small pang went through him. It made his whole body shudder and a brief flare of heat went through his body. Sakura blinked twice before her eyes rolled upwards and she fell back on the couch. Kakashi went over to the side her head was resting on.

"Sakura, wake up." He tapped her shoulder lightly. Not seeing it have any effect, he used the back of his hand to lightly tap her cheek. "Sakura.."

Sakura's face made a frown, letting Kakashi know she was waking up. She sat up again, rubbing her eyes hoping to make her head a little less fuzzy. Her eyes were stinging a bit, and she had a little trouble focusing her left eye. Suddenly she felt two hands on her face. "Close your eyes Sakura," Knowing why Kakashi was here and realizing that she had fainted, she closed her eyes like he had said. She felt his left hand leave her face, and the thumb of his right hand slide over her forehead, down her eyelid, only stopping halfway her cheek. He used his hand to cup her cheek again, and all fuzziness in her head had vanished. He removed his hands, placing his left hand next to her hip, and his right on her left arm. "You can open your eyes again."

Sakura did just that, seeing Kakashi look at her with a confused look. "What? What's wrong?" Sakura was starting to get a little bit concerned by the way he looked at her. He looked even more reluctant to tell her than he looked concerned.

"I know what the scroll meant with the markings.." Her eyes widened a bit, and she quickly moved a hand up towards her left eye. Surely she could feel a gash form on her skin, growing deeper as she was tracing it up and down again with her fingers. Her eyes grew even wider.

"Why?-.."

She didn't finish her sentence, instead she looked at her left arm, Kakashi's hand still resting on her upper arm. She looked from him, back to her arm and back to Kakashi's left arm.

"Kakashi… Move it…" Kakashi closed his eyes and shook his head. "No. you won't like it." Sakura wrapped her hand around Kakashi's wrist and while looking at him, slowly removed his hand. Only when his hand was completely back to his side, did she look at her arm. As she suspected, there was a black ANBU mark. "Shit.."

It was protocol that anyone who was wearing the trademark tattoo had to be enrolled in ANBU. Anyone out of ANBU to wear the mark was breaking protocol and had to be reported to the Hokage immediately. And Kakashi, being an elite jounin, had to arrest her because of this crime.

"Sakura Haruno, head of the Haruno clan of Konoha, apprentice of the fifth Hokage, you are under arrest under subsection twelve of the shinobi code of conduct and law. You are to be detained at the Hokage tower until you are declared guilty or cleared of all charges." Sakura and Kakashi simultaneously let out a big sigh, both had wanted that this would never have to happen

"I'll go with you freely.." They both got up from the couch, leaving their tea on the coffee table. "One problem though. Tsunade doesn't know about the doujutsu ofcourse.." Kakashi walked next to her, and opened the door for Sakura to walk through. "We'll just have to explain it all." He let her walk through the door before walking back inside. When he got out again he was holding the kunai from his pouch and the scroll that Sakura had found that morning. "This'll help explain it all."


	5. Deals and Documents

When Kakashi and Sakura arrived at the Hokage tower, the light was still on inside Tsunade's office. There were two ANBU standing in front of the doorway, and just as Kakashi was about to tell them his intentions, they bowed away to make passage for them. Sakura gave them a curt nod, and moved into the building. Kakashi looked at Sakura, looking for an answer to explain their free passage. Not even looking at him she gave him an answer.

"Hokage's apprentice, remember?"

He completely forgot. The stupid hair kept him in the illusion she was just another genin fresh out of the academy. No full breasts and curvy hips could change that just now.

They arrived at the door to Tsunade's office, the light they saw earlier on shining underneath the door and out onto the dark hallway. Sakura didn't bother knocking, preferring to just walk in on her Shishou. As suspected, Tsunade was sleeping soundly on top of her desk. Her sake was firmly lodged into her hand, and with Shizune on her day off it looked like Tsunade had had all the time of the day to spend drinking. Sakura shut Kakashi up before he could wake her. She signed to him that she was going to make this a 'whole lot easier'… what that meant he didn't know.

Sakura walked over to the Hokage's desk. The bottle was still full up until the notch. Deciding that Tsunade would only find it again if she hid it, she emptied the expensive sake into one of the plants' pots.

Kakashi must have been really sleepy to think that the plant actually looked happy with it. He quickly shook his head of the thought and watched Sakura as she fulfilled her plan.

She went over to the desk again, and hid the Hokage's hat underneath the desk. Even Kakashi knew that Tsunade hated the hat. That it was actually out on her desk and without dust made him think it was recently used. The hat usually meant a official ceremony and it would explain the Sake bottles now stacked next to Hokage-sama's desk.

Sakura loaded her fingers with chakra, making her hair turn into its blonde and pink version again. She brought her fingers to her shishou's temples, intent to make the drunken slumber and accompanying hangover vanish with a small tap.

As expected it fully worked and Tsunade started waking up. Sakura made a very stiff bowing gesture towards Kakashi to let him know it was his lead again. He smiled a bit at the slightly humorous gesture.

"Hokage-sama! I am here to report a violation of the shinobi code of conduct and law subsection twelve.." Tsunade immediately recognized Kakashi's voice and the formal tone suggested that there was something wrong. She shot up into her chair, completely aware of her surroundings once again.

Kakashi on the other hand, knew that if he was going to be of any help to Sakura, he must be on his best behavior towards the Hokage. It wouldn't do if she would throw them both into prison.

Seeing the look on Kakashi's face, one of concern and focus, instead of his usual lazy demeanor made Tsunade a tad worried. The Hokage signaled to the ANBU in the room to leave for 30 minutes.

Only when the ANBU were gone did Sakura come out from behind Kakashi. Tsunade was happy to see her apprentice, but she knew that something was wrong. "You got 30 minutes.."

Kakashi didn't speak. He simply put the scroll in front of Tsunade, the scroll that Sakura had shown him earlier. The Hokage briefly read through it and Kakashi and Sakura waited. When she was done reading, the Hokage stood up from her chair and walked to the front of the desk. Tsunade had always preferred leaning back with both hands on the desk over sitting in the crappy wooden chair.

"What does this have to do with the Shinobi code of conduct?" What Tsunade had read hadn't made her very happy with all the events. She let Kakashi and Sakura explain what had happened on the mission, and she had an inkling that the two of them were here to hand themselves over. But on the other hand that made no sense, '_teacher student relationships aren't listed under subsection twelve_..' Subsection twelve was about forgers, fakers, intruders and cheaters to put it shortly.

Kakashi went to sit in a chair and Sakura mimicked his movements by sitting down herself. "As you now know Hokage-sama, strange events have happened the past 24 hours. Sakura wanted my help in trying to discover what had caused this all. We discovered that when she pulls chakra from her pool, her hair will turn partly blonde and that her eyes will change. Her eyes seem to give her some special bloodline, and we couldn't find anything in ordinary documents. But then we found the scroll." Kakashi mentioned his hand over to the scroll. "And we decided to try something out. "

"Unbeknownst to Sakura, I threw a kunai at her. She stopped it, and the action made her chakra flare. Thus, her eyes 'activated' and a strange chill went through both of us. Turned out something happened between both of us, because Sakura… well she 'copied' my markings. We don't know what happened beyond that."

By now Sakura was busy making the seal to disperse the henge she had placed over herself. When the smoke had dissipated Tsunade could see the clear, healed scar on Sakura's face. It was an exact copy of Kakashi's scar, she could tell. Sakura showed Tsunade the mark on her arm and Tsunade finally knew why she was here.

Tsunade nodded and motioned for Sakura to come closer. She looked at the marking on her face. "Have you found any other markings?" Sakura moved her head into a no.

"We haven't checked." Tsunade mumbled an okay, and started checking Sakura's visible skin.

"Could you please remove your shirt?" Sakura complied to the order, and Tsunade could immediately see it. "We've got bigger problems than the first markings. Look"

He walked over to Tsunade and Sakura and looked at where she pointed. He saw something, but he didn't know what it was. He looked up and Tsunade motioned for him to look closer. He put his hands on her sides and looked closer. He could start to make out writing, and lines around her navel. When he took a bit of distance again, he could see that it was a seal.

It looked like the seal Naruto had..

Oh god. It was Naruto's seal to keep the Kyuubi back. When she was sick, a similar thing had happened as the thing that had happened just now between Kakashi and Sakura. And she had probably started to copy the markings on his body.

This could be a problem.

They still didn't know what Sakura had done when she copied Kakashi's markings. He looked up at her, and he could see she had the same thoughts.

"Fuck" was the only thing he could say.

Tsunade merely nodded and crossed her arms over her chest. Kakashi and Sakura could see her thinking and stayed silent. When after fifteen minutes Tsunade hadn't changed position, Sakura summoned Kazuko and gave her a little letter to take somewhere. The cat nodded her 'okay' and swiftly left in a poof of smoke. Five minutes later the cat returned, holding a scroll in her mouth. She gave it to Sakura and Kakashi could see Sakura thank the cat with a whispered 'thank you' and a quick scratch behind the ears. The cat left for the second time, and Kakashi saw Sakura put the scroll in a destined pocket on her leather belt.

"Sakura Haruno!"

Tsunade suddenly jumped up from her former thinking position, and the attention of the two seated ninjas was immediately pulled towards their Hokage.

"Head of the Haruno clan, former apprentice to the fifth Hokage,"

Kakashi could see Sakura tense, and he himself could only try to imagine what it would be like to be arrested by your mentor. "Congratulations on your promotion." Sakura's and Kakashi's head snapped up. Both were looking wide eyed at Tsunade. '_Wasn't she going to arrest her?_' Tsunade walked back to the back of her desk, and grabbed an empty form from a drawer. She grabbed some ink and a pen and started scribbling different things on it.

"You have successfully completed over 10 S-Class missions on your training journey. And after a private examination by the Fifth herself and the Copy Ninja, you are hereby promoted to ANBU. You will receive your tattoo today and will be put on active duty after two weeks of introduction by an ANBU captain. As I haven't been able to tell you yet, we have made a minor change in teams after your departure. Genin teams are teams of four plus an Jounin captain. Chuunin teams are teams of three, with a Jounin member as captain. Jounin teams are teams of two, with no captain, both on equal terms. Seeing as you were previously on active duty as Jounin with Kakashi, I will keep you both on a team."

Kakashi was the first to recover from his stare. "Congratulations Sakura." He stood up to stand next to Tsunade's desk. "I am assigning you as the captain to introduce her Kakashi." She scribbled two notes and gave them both to Kakashi. Sakura was still a bit shocked by her sudden promotion. And she hadn't a clue about the whisper Tsunade gave Kakashi.

"_**Hurt her, and I'll banish you from Konoha" **_They holded eye contact for a few seconds, neither saying anything and after a minute Kakashi still didn't respond to the threat in any way. "Come back tomorrow you two, and we'll try to find out what this thing is that happened to Sakura." When she was done speaking Kakashi gave a honest look towards Tsunade and she knew that he was taking her threat serious. She broke the eye contact and Kakashi stood straight and walked towards Sakura.

"Let's go, I'll walk you home." Sakura took his offered hand to lift herself up and opened the window for the two of them to jump out of. As she was standing in the window sill Tsunade had a last few words. "And Sakura," She turned to watch her Shishou over her shoulder. " First, congratulations and happy to have you back. Second of all, You've got my complete approval of him." Tsunade smiled a wicked smile and Sakura just shook her head. "You wish. It would make fucking talented ninja kids if that happened." After that she vanished, jumping out onto the street next to Kakashi and leaving that sentence hanging in the air of Tsunade's office.

Tsunade sat silent for a few moments, enjoying the silence the two ANBU left in her office. Seeing the empty sake bottles and the time on the wall she thought she could go to a bar and enjoy a couple more..

'_It's already 9:30,.._'

No, instead she decided to let everything of today mull over in her head. She could hear and sense the ANBU returning to their guarding spots, exactly on time and decided to get some more work done before closing the office down for the night. Sakura's sentence still hung in the silent office.

'-_**fucking talented ninja kids**__-.._ _You've grown… Sakura_…'

She got out an mission form, starting to fill out the requirements and the assigned mission. Knowing this was a heavy mission, she signed it A-class. Not because it involved any bingo book ninja, but because it involved some very dangerous Konoha kunoichi … Well, at the end of the mission at least.

After handling all the paperwork in the IN basket, and assigning all of tomorrow's missions, she left the office after dismissing the ANBU. Walking through the streets of Konoha, she saw so much faces; Of young children, of new chuunin, of old retired shinobi, of civilian mothers and fathers.. that for the first time since long ago Tsunade could say she liked her job as Hokage. Well with exception that she had to see the face they carved on the monument. She always thought she looked dead already.

Not long after she left the office could she feel a familiar chakra pattern behind her.

She smiled to herself. '_So he wants to play.'_

Tsunade knew he was getting closer, so she loaded her arms with chakra.

As Jiraiya was jumping off the building, Tsunade threw a stone at his leg. It hit and made him lose balance while in the air. When he almost hit the ground, Tsunade catched him by the collar and lifted him up again. Jiraiya couldn't find himself in a worse position.

"Uh-oh.." Jiraiya knew he was going to end up in a hospital tonight. The question was, Konoha's hospital? Or the one in Sand because she hit him that far?

Tsunade smiled, "Uh-oh indeed! Why were you trying to sneak up on me?"

"NO! no! noooooo, I wasn't trying to sneak up on you! Nooooooo, Ahahaha. I wanted to SURPRISE you!"

Tsunade put her other hand on her hip, showing that he better say something good, or he would fly better than most birds could. Jiraiya gave up. Hanging by his collar, being hold by Tsunade wasn't something good and he decided to better tell the thruth.

"I wanted to hug you…" Tsunade could see that he meant it. But still a little voice in her head told her there was something else. Her eyes turned into little slits and her voice drawled out dripping with venom. "Aaaaaand?"

Jiraiya tensed. "Aaaand give you a kiss?" 'big smile. It'll all be alright.' She knew there was something more behind it, but she also decided to let it drop for now. She put him back on the ground only to plant her high heel on top of his foot. Jiraiya's face turned into a mixture of pain and discomfort, and when she took her heel off his foot, he immediately grabbed it and started to hold it to his stomach. Just for fun, seeing as he was now way too busy with his one foot, Tsunade gave a small tap to his shoulder to topple him over.

"_OOMPH."_

Tsunade laughed, "Come, let's go drink! You still have to report to me and I need your advice."

Together they walked away. Leaving the street in preference of a good bar and lots of sake.

-X-

Kakashi and Sakura had passed by the ANBU headquarters to pick up an uniform before going back to Sakura's place. The female uniform was barely different from the men's uniform that she had seen on Kakashi so many times. She remembered from her genin days that Kakashi had a wolf's mask. She had a white Bengal tiger. That meant she didn't have the red accents on her mask. It was pure black and white.

When they arrived at Sakura's house, Sakura invited Kakashi back in for the tea they had left behind before. She had left the henge down on the way back, and she had gotten quite a few stares. When Sakura and Kakashi arrived at the house, Sakura disappeared into the kitchen for the second time that day. Kakashi walked back to the bookcase. He had seen how Sakura had activated the hidden shelf. She had charged a finger with chakra and lined it over the expensive wooden board.

"It's not gonna work Kakashi!" Kakashi hadn't even tried to remove the casing just yet. He had only lined his finger over the wood. "It only activates to my chakra. It's made from a Philokrates tree, or a tree of power. It's very rare and can recognize chakra patterns." Kakashi turned to see Sakura walk out of the kitchen with two new mugs of tea. She put both of them down on the coffee table and moved the old ones out of the way.

"I'm gonna go get changed for a moment. Just make yourself at home." Kakashi looked her over. "What are you going to change then?" Sakura started tugging on the hem of her shirt and only then did he realize it was too short. "I have worn this shirt since I was sixteen and I left Konoha. It's a little bit short don't you think?" She laughed and got out the scroll that the cat had brought with him and unsealed it. Out fell a big brown package labeled 'clothes'. She grabbed it and walked into her bedroom, firmly closing the door behind her.

He grabbed his cup of tea and walked through the room. She had lots of pictures, mostly of herself with Ino or with Naruto. Kakashi had figured that she would have pictures of herself with her parents, but he couldn't find even one picture. He heard the door open and he turned around to find Sakura in her new outfit in the doorway. Sakura had always been one for practical outfits, preferring that clothes were equipped with something, or else stayed out of the way.

She was wearing a sort of t-shirt, but instead of a normal shirt, this one stopped just below her midriff. It was colored red, but was faded into a smooth pastel color. The t-shirt had a hood with a few clasps on it, and under the hem of the shirt bindings covered some of her stomach. She had bound her hitae-ate on her upper arm, just above the ANBU tattoo and she was still wearing her elbow protectors and leather gloves.

She had the same medic apron on, still with the front side turned to the back; 'So it won't get in the way of my feet'. He had asked her why she wore it the wrong way round when they had walked back from the restaurant. She told him that she could easily turn it around when the time called for it.

She did have another belt on, this one was still made from leather, but it was a bit wider and had place for a katana and a scroll on back. It had the same pockets on the front side as the other belt, made for carrying medicine, kunai, shuriken, scrolls, poisons, and senbon.

She was wearing standard Jounin issue pants, and they were binded down like Kakashi did with his own pants just below the knees. But she was also wearing just below the knees shoes, covered with shin and toe guards. The shoes had a slight heel, and knowing Sakura, it had a very lethal purpose.

Over her t-shirt with the hood she wore a Jounin vest, but unlike Kakashi's this one was white with red pockets. He had seen them on Shizune before and recognized it as vest for Tsunade's med squad. On the back it had the red swirl, but on top of the swirl was embroidered 'fifth'. Showing that she was part of Tsunade's trainings squad.

"Nice, don't you think? It's much better than my old outfit. This one has more pockets and doesn't get in the way when I fight." Kakashi merely nodded and gave a 'hn' before turning back to the pictures. He heard Sakura pick up her mug of tea and stand next to him. He noticed that even with her heels the top of her head only reached up to his chin.

"Why aren't there any pictures of you and your parents here?"

Sakura kept looking at the pictures. Never looking him in the eye. He saw her harden, pulling up a shell. He could feel the cold vibe that she gave off.

"I don't have parents."

Kakashi frowned, Sakura couldn't be an orphan because he knew her parents didn't die in the Kyuubi fight. He looked back at a picture of Ino and Sakura in a flower garden.

"But who took this picture then?" He pointed at said picture and he saw Sakura smile. "Inoichi-san did. He gave it to me for my eleventh birthday."

Kakashi gave one look towards the picture before turning around and walking towards the sofa again.

"What has happ-" she cut him off.

"I don't want to talk about it.." he turned around again, looking at Sakura's back. "Sakura," he saw her tense. "You do have parents, don't mock them by telling me you don't have parents"

He saw her ease again and she turned to meet his gaze. "Right Kakashi, my parents are alive and you don't have a Sharingan eye. Okay? Now shut up about it." Seeing he shouldn't pry any further, he did shut up and started lurking his cup of tea through his mask.

Sakura sat down on her couch and Kakashi kept looking at pictures. "You tell me three things about your past. Important things!, and I'll tell you three of mine." Kakashi looked at her and smiled.

"And either get that stupid grin off your face or take the stupid mask off. I've seen your face before anyway.." Sakura huffed. And Kakashi just turned around and crossed his arms.

"Deal, but you promise me we're gonna train every day for the next two weeks together."

Sakura grinned. Nothing sounded better to her. "Deal!"


	6. Science and Sleep

Black. Fuzziness and black.

Open your eyes.

Still black.

Voices, _'Do I recognize them?'_ Not audible enough.

Wet. Really really wet. Soaked to her bones actually.

_'Must get off floor._' Mumble for help. _'Was that loud enough?'_

Apparently it was, because she was helped into a sitting position by someone or something. Immediately she felt the reassuring soft fur of her protective summon panther behind her back. Ironically named Kakashi, she was always protected and cared for by him like Kakashi-Sensei used to do when she was a defenseless genin.

_'Where am I?_'

The blackness in front of her eyes and the fuzziness in her head was starting to fade.

Her head hurt like hell, and she wasn't sure how it happened. She could remember the flying kunai and the sudden rock nin ambush, but she didn't remember whether they won or lost, and what had happened further into the fight.

"Kakashi-Sempai!" Where was he anyway?

"No need to yell, I'm right next to you."

Sakura twisted to look at him, but the excrutiating pain and stiffness of her neck caused her to wince and turn back.

"You might want to heal that, you've made a pretty hard smack." Kakashi walked from behind her, out of her recently enlarged blindspot and into an area where she could see him.

"I can't heal sprains remember?" Why did he even ask? He knew practically all her skills from her two week tutoring under him to learn ANBU everything.

"I was thinking about the really big and painfully looking head injury, but if you like it you should leave it like that." Kakashi was looking way too smug for Sakura's liking. His male ego needed some bashing "It colours nicely with your hair and you could probably whip up a nice lipstick to go with it!"

"Ha. Ha. Be sure to make fun of all the ANBU operatives you meet. Make sure they know where you live, so they know who to string up by his soft tissue next time he harassed them." at least now she knew why her left eyesight was pinkish...

"I'm sorry," Kakashi said. "You weren't supposed to get hurt like that."

Sakura crossed her arms in front of her. "Like you could help it. I should've seen it coming."

She tried getting up from the ground, which was made of moss and little plants. Her clothes were totally soaked, and she could feel her body reacting to the cold water. She stood a little shakily, but firm none the less. She walked over to Kakashi and noticed he was breathing quite heavily.

"What's wrong with you? And don't say nothing, because unless you have asthma you're wheezing like you're going to die." She put her hand on his shoulder and guided him to a fallen tree trunk. Normally she would have treated him on the ground, but with all the moss on the floor that was soaking up water, it wasn't the most reasonable thing to do.

"I think I punctured a lung, and cracked a few ribs, but nothing major." He laid down on the trunk, wincing only slightly from the added pressure to his back. Sakura poked around his ribs a bit and confirmed that he broke at least 2 on his left side and 3 on his right side.

"What's wrong with your leg?" he asked her, "It doesn't look all that healthy..." she looked at her legs and could immediately see that she had broken her right tibia. Part of the bone was sticking out of her leg, and a huge rip in her Jounin pants showed a huge wound. It made her wonder how she had gotten up from the ground and walked over to Kakashi without noticing anything.

"First things first. You need to get healed. Lie down." Kakashi did as he was told and she continued her prodding and probing for a few more minutes. Finding nothing wrong except for his ribs, she prepared herself to heal the bones. She summoned the chakra to her right hand, making her hair turn partly blonde again, and steadied Kakashi with her left. The chakra around her hand glowed up green before it turned transparent again. Only those with the Sharingan, Rinnegan or Byakugan could see chakra outside of the body.

She placed her hand over the rib that had punctured Kakashi's lung and started to heal the soft tissue of the lung. When it was finally closed, she moved over to the rib near his lung after using some chakra to numb him. She lifted up the rib with her chakra into its correct position and started to mend the two parts of the bone.

As soon as she started, she could feel the bone was mending slower and slower by the second. And when she was halfway through, it fully stopped mending.

"What the..?" Her chakra reserves were still full to the rim; healing one little wound couldn't have put a huge dent in it. So what else could have caused the process to stop?

"Your chakra pattern is irregular." Kakashi responded to the shocked look at her face. She turned a bit to look at Kakashi. He had pulled his headband up and was watching her with the Sharingan. He could see that she wasn't responding to what he was saying.

He saw her take a deep breath before turning herself towards the tree trunk. Sakura had a little habit while healing patients. She would use her hands to drum small melodies on the table after the healing.

Kakashi knew she wasn't done yet, but still she was drumming away on the tree trunk, and her chakra patter was getting more and more irregular.

"I healed your lung. And you should be able to breathe a little better now. Don't smoke for a while. You lungs need time to repair." He could see her eyes were dilated.

"You know I don't smoke Sakura." He was starting to get even more worried now. Her head wound was starting to spill blood on the ground, and she was shaking a little. "Don't try to fool me, Asuma-sensei! Everyone knows you smoke whole tobacco fields in a few days time!"

What the hell? "I'm not Asuma-Sensei?" Sakura smiled a little. With the dilated eyes she looked like she was on drugs.

"Forgot to tell me that you have a concussion sensei? If you have, you shouldn't use chakra!" Sakura was starting to slip to the side, and Kakashi couldn't get up fast enough to catch her. Luckily 'Kashi-Neko was by her side in seconds to catch her. Even on the back of her summon was she muttering to 'Asuma-Sensei'.

"Your chakra patterns will be conflicted by the bashing your skull received…"

Soon she passed out and Kakashi and 'Kashi-Neko were left in the clearing. "Stupid, stupid girl!..."

At least she was still breathing.

He noticed that his right side didn't hurt as badly as before, and accounted it to Sakura numbing his body before trying to heal him.

"Let's go..." Kashi-Neko said. He waited until Kakashi gave a sharp whistle as the sign for his pack to gather before he let out a low growl as their gathering signal. Soon all of Sakura's and Kakashi's summons were gathered in the clearing, ready to leave.

When Sakura woke up again, her whole neck was sore and she couldn't move it. Her head felt like it was about to explode and she could already feel the nausea telling her that she could vomit any time now.

Slowly she looked around, and she saw that Kakashi had brought her to a simple hotel. Typically he had put her, and all her water soaked clothes, on the big kingsize bed. The bed had soaked up most of the water, but her whole body still felt moist and damp. She was on top of the covers, probably because she still had a bone sticking out of her leg. Looking out of the window, it looked like she had been out for less than an hour.

Near her feet was a very content looking Kazuko, snoring away and dreaming happy dreams. Next to her bed was one of Kakashi's summons; the big one named Bull. They were both looking extremely happy with finally sleeping on something more solid than the typical whirlpool moss forest ground.

Propping herself up on her elbows, not minding the increased nausea or the dizziness, she could see that Kakashi was sitting at the small round table in the middle of the room. The small table was lighted only by a single small light bulb, and from here it looked like it was the only light in the room.

Kashi-Neko, Kajihana, Kakashi, Pakkun and Pachinko were playing a card game, probably poker. The only thing missing was the smoke hanging around the room, because then it would have looked like a very familiar painting she knew.

They looked like they were having a lot of fun. But as soon as Kakashi saw that Sakura was awake, he put his cards back on the table and walked over to her.

"Sakura, what is my name?" he gently asked her, and meanwhile he changed the bandage around her head. She could feel the wound starting to bleed a little, before Kakashi wrapped a new bandage firmly around her head.

"Kakashi of course.." she remembered being in the clearing of the forest, ready to start healing Kakashi, but suddenly she became very dizzy and her mind turned blank.

"Thank god, by now I was starting to think you suffered permanent brain damage.." A vein popped on Sakura's forehead, nobody got away with insulting her!

Moving all her weight to one elbow, she got her right arm free and she slapped Kakashi on the back of his head.

"Ouch!" Kakashi rubbed the back of his head gently. "What was that for?"

Sakura looked smugly at him and said, "For insulting me you idiot!" Inner Sakura showed up again with a cry of 'Cha! Nobody gets away with insulting us!' Before Sakura pushed her out of her mind with a thought of 'Not you again...'

"Hey, it's not my fault that you kept calling me Asuma-Sensei. And to think that I took care of you, you ungrateful student.." Kakashi crossed his arms in front of him, and Sakura could almost see him pouting under his mask.

"Why would I call you Asuma-Sensei?" Sakura mirrored him, also crossing her arms in front of her. Kakashi simply raised an eyebrow at her before answering. "Do you remember much from the past day?"

Sakura shoved herself up a bit in bed. "No, not much. What happened?"

Kakashi seated himself on the bed by Sakura's calves and adjusted some pillows for her so she could sit up better. Once she was seated, he started telling her how they got this mission after finally finishing the two obligated ANBU training weeks.

The mission was to travel to the country of Whirlpool to protect the daimyo of Whirlpool, who had had a few attempts made on his life by now. It was a Jounin mission, so they both set off in their regular clothing.

Once they had passed the border of the Fire country, and had set off on their journey along Earth country's border, they had been attacked several times. It was necessary to travel through the Earth country to reach Whirlpool. It was that or through Lightning, which was even more dangerous territory for Konoha shinobi.

Sakura and Kakashi had evaded, defeated or outwitted most of the enemy nin, but nobody had noticed one group of rock Jounin trailing them. The nekonin and ninken had missed their trails and marks because they left none. And Kakashi's and Sakura's senses didn't notice them because there wasn't anything to notice.

Only until one of their kunai came flying out of the bushes did the two Jounin notice their enemy. Kakashi's headband flew up and his Sharingan quickly noticed the ten rock nin scattered in the bushes around them.

Seeing Sakura as an easy prey, two jumped her and the other eight jumped Kakashi. Unfortunately for Sakura, the group's leader had chosen her to have some fun with. Sakura immediately put her surgical equipment scroll on the side. With its size it would be a burden in this fight. Putting up all her defenses and getting ready to fight, Sakura immediately summoned Kashi-Neko, her Panther summon, and Kajihana, her Asian Golden Cat summon which had the ability to turn her fur on fire.

With a finely aimed senbon that she pulled out of her hair she paralyzed the lesser of the two men, signing to the two felines to end his life. Kashi-Neko bit and snapped his spinal cord in half, and once he was dead, Kajihana quickly finished it by burning his body and letting his ashes be carried by the wind.

The two summons finished their battle, and watched Sakura's fight to see if she needed them to jump in. Sakura and her opponent were fighting for some time now. They were pretty even in terms of stamina. Both of them were starting to show signs of fatigue and they had both started to rely on simple taijutsu to hold the opponent of.

Sakura's punches were loaded with chakra, but her enemy countered them simply by blocking with his hands or arms. Once he took his jacket off, it was obvious that he had a sort of metal arms. The small dents In the metal plating showed that Sakura had done some damage, but it looked insignificant on the large metal surface.

"That isn't normal metal, is it? I would have crushed it by now if it was." Sakura looked the metal over. It looked rather plain to her.

The man grinned, thinking himself invincible."No. This is way better. It has a layer of Jade on it, making it almost indestructible when helped with a bit of chakra."

However, Sakura saw a weak point. His metal arms were attached by the shoulders, and the joints couldn't move as freely as real flesh and bones. She noticed that when he guarded his head, a small pressure point was left open on his right side. If she occupied his arms, she could probably reach the point and knock him out.

Flicking through all her genjutsu, ninjutsu and taijutsu, she couldn't find anything that worked for sure. There was one move, which had almost worked on Kakashi, but if it would work here...

_'Let's at least try..'_ Sakura switched from punches to kicking and kept going on until the man was cornered and couldn't counter. She kicked for his head with her right leg, and as expected, he caught it in the palm of his hand.

Before he could grab onto her ankle with both hands and twist her, she kicked up with her left leg, also aiming for his head, to occupy both of his hands.

She twisted her legs to try and get her upper body near his chest, to make a sort of somersault while he hold her. But while she was still in the air, one of the men Kakashi had thrown off him in his fight came flying through the air above. Sakura didn't see him coming, and when the new opponent saw the opening, he immediately aimed for her body in a kick. He hit her neck, and her body hit the ground head first.

After the first shock, both of her summons jumped in to finish the fight. With their opponents already being tired from fighting Sakura, it wasn't long before they finished them off.

After the fight, Kakashi finished off his last opponent and the two cats went up to him. Kajihana burned all of the bodies and Kakashi asked Kashi-Neko about Sakura.

The cat told him of her fight. How she used the move Sasuke used on Kakashi in the bell test, and how a opponent kicked her head first into the ground.

"Help...me...up.." both of the Kakashi's turned towards the sound. Sakura was moving both of her hands over the floor, searching for someone to help her up. Kakashi walked over and gently helped her up by the shoulders so Kashi-Neko could slide behind her back.

Sakura proceeded to heal Kakashi and passed out, so they gathered her stuff and helped Sakura on Kakashi's back. Not many hours later did she wake up in the hotel room.

"Are we on schedule to meet the daimyo?" Sakura asked. She also asked Kazuko for her surgical scroll, and he brought it.

Kakashi took the scroll from the cat before answering "Yes. As a matter a fact, we still have two spare days before we have to report there. Tsunade counted on something like this happening, so she gave us a few extra days." he handed her the scroll and watched her unseal it. "So we'll rest here until were ready to go on."

The surgical scroll, when unsealed, contained even more scrolls, all standing on the scroll vertically with different subscripts and in different sizes. The scroll was divided in four different colors: red, yellow, blue and orange.

Sakura grabbed one of the large scrolls out of the red section, and gave it to Kakashi.

"Hold this for me please" Kakashi nodded. He watched her send her cats back to their realm, and she gave him a nod to signal him to do the same. Once all the animals were gone, she grabbed 3 other scrolls, before sealing the rest back.

"What are you going to do with that?" Kakashi asked,

"I'm going to fix my leg." she started to arrange the bed so that she could work there. She tried lifting herself off the bed, and with Kakashi's help it worked.

"Could you roll the scroll out under the bed?"

"Sure," and Kakashi did. He followed her commands about how to unseal the scroll, and soon a tiny little green wave went through the room. "What was that?" he asked her.

"It's something that sterilized the room. If you want, you can watch what I'm going to do with your Sharingan." While she was talking, she was ripping her pants off with the help of a nearby kunai.

"Do you need something?" Kakashi asked while he moved his headband up to reveal his crimson eye.

"If you don't mind, I'll need a shirt and some underwear that is _dry_" sneaky glare met by chuckle and eye crease. "And some towels."

"Sure, heh" Kakashi moved into the bathroom, to get the towels she asked for, and he grabbed her bag from a nearby chair so she could pick her own clothes. When he got back into the room, Sakura had ripped her pants off and had thrown the now damp bed covers to the floor.

She took the bag and towels from him, placing them both on the bed. She took off the rest of her clothing and threw it over a nearby chair. She motioned for Kakashi to either close his eyes or turn around.

"Okay, I'm ready." He turned around and saw her sitting on the bed in her undies and an old slightly oversized t-shirt. She handed him one of the three blue scrolls to hold onto.

"This is how it works. The scrolls I have here are surgical scrolls, which basically means that I'm going to operate on myself. The one you're holding is equipment to break, reset and fix bones. The one I'm holding is standard surgical kit; scalpels, iodide, the works. The last one is simply needles and medicine to prevent infections and some local anesthetics. I would like you unseal the scrolls when I need them, but that means that you have to listen to me whenever I give you a command. Can you do that?"

He had never seen Sakura this intense. He knew that she had learned a lot under Tsunade, and this definitely chipped away at the premature look she had about her. "Sure, I can do that."

"Okay. Here are the scrolls. The scroll with standard equipment is Scroll 1. The surgical scroll is Two. And the one with bottles is number Three. Ready?" She handed him the scrolls in order, and he nodded.

"Ready."

"Scroll 1 and 3." He unsealed the first and she grabbed a little plastic cube with foil over it and a pair of big tweezers. She took the foil off the plastic cube, and with the tweezers she took a tiny sponge out that was smothered with iodide. She handed it to him.

"Isn't it important that I'm steril?" Kakashi asked as Sakura grabbed a bottle from scroll 3 and a needle and prepared the local anesthetic.

"The scroll that you rolled out under the bed sterilized you and me together with the room." She took the needle and inserted it in several places on her own leg, leaving tiny bumps where there was anesthetic left under her skin to do its work. "I was working on a version to be used in the hospital while I was on my training mission." She took the tweezers back from him and took the sponge over the wound and protruding bone.

"Scroll 2." They kept on working like this, with Kakashi helping Sakura where he could. They had to set the bone the traditional way because Sakura couldn't use chakra yet with the concussion. They placed a little plate onto the bone with some special screws and closed up the wound. Afterwards, Sakura injected some antibiotics to prevent an infection and took a blood pill to regain the blood she lost during the improvised surgery.

After the surgery she pointed Kakashi to some Tylenol and Aspirins in her bag to take for his fractured ribs. She instructed him to take two pills every six hours. She looked painfully tired. She had been doing surgery on her own leg for over 2,5 hours with a concussion. Kakashi himself was tired from the surgery, and he didn't even do all that much.

"If I fall asleep, which I doubt." She said while her head was nodding and her eyes fell closed every few seconds. "Make sure to wake me every hour."

"Why?" Kakashi gathered all the towels and her pack from the bed, while she was wrapping her leg with a bandage.

"If I don't wake up every hour, I risk getting a stroke or just plainly stop breathing. I don't have to really be awake. As long as I respond to you it's okay."

As soon as she finished her sentence, Kakashi could hear the light snores coming from the bedside of the room. He dumped the towels in the bath, letting the water clean them from the blood.

He walked back into the room and saw that Sakura was laying on her half of the big king size bed. She as sleeping on her side, with her legs pulled up just a little bit.

Kakashi could only think back to the time when she still sported a childhood crush on her teammate. Far too naïve to think about anything else than herself. But for the first time since she came back almost a month ago…

No, for the first time since he taught her, almost seven years ago, he saw that this was a woman.

A woman with a job, with friends, with exes, with a love life, with a sex life. A woman that was desired by men for her body, her skill, her laugh, her character.

'_A woman who is desired for who she is_,' he thought as he set his alarm one hour from now and laid down on his side of the bed. He put one hand on her shoulder near her face and brushed some hair away with his thumb. She sighed in her sleep.


	7. The Maternal Vibe

**Flashback:**

_**Shinobi Memo #197,**_

_**June 4 1687.**_

"_**Due to the recent losses in the Jounin ranks, the Hokage decided to redistribute all jounins into two man teams. Chunins get three man teams including their sensei, and genin squads remain four man teams. ANBU squads will be appointed to each mission in different teams. They will be appointed by skill and specialty.**_

_**Signed,**_

_**Undersecretary Shinobi Staff and Head of Interrogation,**_

_**Morino Ibiki.**_

"**Sooo what does this mean?" Sakura read the memo over again. "Are we Team Kakashi again or what?"**

**Kakashi shrugged "Well, the only reason we were Team Kakashi was because I was your team leader. But we're equals now, so I guess we get ourselves a number assigned." **

**They walked up to a desk in the Jounin lounge, and Kakashi put the memo they just read on the counter.**

"**Which Team numbers are we assigned?" The man behind the counter shuffled around a bit, retrieving three separate scrolls. One he handed over to Kakashi. It read 'Mission Log'. The other two Sakura could indentify as their performance scrolls.**

"**Hatake Kakashi, function number #19970821. Hatake Sakura, function number #36762467.."**

**Two pairs of eyebrows raised up.**

"**Uhm, I'm sorry, I just wanted to know what my last name was according to the archives?"**

"**Hatake Sakura, function number #36762467"**

**Both Jounin looked up in surprise. **

~X~

Sakura burst through the door, looking like she was going to die from lack of air. She had been trying to hold her laughter in for so long, that it felt good to let it go and let herself fall on the big king size bed. Just two steps behind her, Kakashi walked in. He had an invisible smirk plastered on behind his mask, and was walking in with his hands folded behind his head.

He looked at Sakura with an amused eye, watching her roll over on the bed.

"Oh god Kakashi! You're such a bad diplomatic that it's weird Tsunade let you be a shinobi! Hahaha."

"What? What did I do?" innocent look, silence, laughter.

"Hahaha! '_what did I do_?' oh god, stop!" Sakura tried to mimic Kakashi's voice.

"You do know we're going to get the Daimyo on our asses now?" Sakura had piped down a bit and was more serious now.

Kakashi shrugged, "He probably has a good sense of humor."

Sakura snorted again. "Or he doesn't know what it means."

Silence

"Snort"

Now both Kakashi and Sakura were laughing out loud.

Sakura kept thinking back to the stupid conversation and it made her laugh over and over again.

~X~

Once both their injuries had healed, Team 19 left from their motel to the daimyo's estate. They were just on time but the daimyo was still slightly annoyed with them for unknown reasons. The daimyo immediately took them to his meeting room and explained their mission. Apparently there has been a mysterious disease going around in the hidden village of water country, waterfall. The daimyo has done his best to keep from becoming effected by the extremely contagious virus, but has been caught in an assassination attempt three times now. The daimyo was extremely distrusting of his own hidden village, even going so far as thinking the Mizukage was assaulting him, and with lightning and mist being extremely hostile countries he deposited his mission at Tsunade's displacement.

"Excuse me sir," Kakashi interrupted, "There is a tiiiiny problem."

Kakashi had lifted his pinky into the air. In Konoha this is known as an referral to a tiny penis. This sign is highly insulting, but in Waterfall, lifting a pinky is seen as a formal way of apologizing for cutting into a story, or finishing someone's sentence when unwanted. Kakashi knew this, but Sakura immediately turned red. Kakashi noticed this and tried to pester her a little.

"Speak, Shinobi. Although I do regard it impolite to address me with manners familiar to the people of the water country." The Daimyo literally frowned upon Kakashi by lifting himself up to his knees a bit, and giving him a bit of altitude over him.

"My sincerest apology my lord, but In Fire country we know this manner as known to address something _small_." Kakashi deliberately accentuated the last word, and enticed a small snort from Sakura.

"Control the woman Shinobi, she is starting to offend me more than acceptable from such a _lowlife_ like her." Sakura angered visibly and Kakashi put a hand on her thigh to keep her from reacting.

"Surely, sir." Sakura fell into step with him by bowing deeply.

Kakashi's pinky went up again. "About this _small_ matter sir, it is highly annoying and it seems that women are not at all when confroted with the obvious _problem__s__._"

. . .

Shinobi revenge was sweet, very sweet indeed.

"Yes? What is it?" The mystery with which Kakashi spoke pulled the interest of the Daimyo towards the conversation.

"It's very _short_, so _short_ that it's rarely seen on this world. And it smells _terribly_. It doesn't _supply_ for women in pleasure, and I yave seen women _shrivel_ when coming near it and almost no one will try it out ."

Sakura was crying by now, only able to stop from laughing by biting her lip till it bled.

"WOMAN!" Sakura sprung up in her seat, trying to maintain a professional stature. "You may clean yourself up, I cannot have you bleeding on my carpet or table." The Daimyo waved for an towel and a servant brought one by.

"Continue, however I am slightly offended, and don't see where this problem lies."

Tiny snort, unnoticed by the daimyo.

"You should be sir! This isn't a very good representation for your lands. We of Fire country are _very well endowed_ on this kind of matter."

Bloody nose on Sakura's part, quickly smothered by the already bloody towel.

"What are you referring to shinobi?" the daimyou looked very confused and troubled.

"That you do not know is, excuse me, very shameful sir. It is the main asset of a _wealthy_ man's possessions."

"Well? What is it?" The daimyo had gone from leaning on his elbows to putting his hands flat on the table. For a brief moment the two men had a stare off, with Sakura hiccupping into her towel on the back ground.

"I speak of course, of your…" he hesitated.

"?"

"Bathhouse"

~X~

Both laid down on the bed, tired and out of breath.

"So, everyone in Fire country is well endowed, hm?" Sakura turned her head to Kakashi.

"I wouldn't know. I don't actually swing that way.."

Sakura faked a surprised expression and slapped her hand in front of her mouth with very big and fake gestures.

"Nooo! And I thought I saw love blooming when Gai piggybacked you to Konoha after we saved Gaara from the Akatsuki!" Kakashi now also turned his head towards her and frowned at her. "Ha-Ha. You're funnier than Sai!"

Sakura only smiled, happy to have finally hit one of his buttons. "I am not touched by your comment, because my body will murder you, me and everybody in this mansion if I don't go and get cleaned up now. And I hate to admit it, I cannot transplant a Sharingan into myself and it's still quite useful on this mission.." Sakura used her legs to whip herself of the bed with a grunt, and grabbed one of the towels.

Kakashi thought about going with her before calling for her to wait. "The person-who-is-only-useful-for-his-sharingan also wants to clean up, so if you have the pantience to wait for a moment.." As Kakashi used the same motion to get up, he immediately got a towel smacked into his face when he was on his feet.

"Oophf!" He pulled the towel from his face and saw Sakura waiting there with a hand on her hip. "Hurry up, I'm going to go mad if I don't jump into a bath soon." Just to pester her, Kakashi deliberately went about the room very slowly to the point where Sakura was tapping her foot on the floor.

"That's it, I'm go-" "READY!" Kakashi stood overly excited in front of Sakura.

"Sometimes, I hate you so badly.." Kakashi gave her an eye crinkle and ruffled her hair.

"Ahw, I love you too!"

They both walked down and out of the mansion, and being told there was no bathhouse at the mansion (even though Kakashi was sure he saw one while walking around) they chose to go to the public bathing houses.

Sakura saw a sign pointing to the closest entrance and entered happily.

'Finally a bath! I've wanted this for so long now..'

She hung up her clothes in one of the closed off compartments and tied the small rope and key that locked the compartment around her wrist. She tied her towel firmly around her bust and tucked a corner in near her armpit so it wouldn't drop. She walked past the showers and past the sulfur bath when she came to a sign.

_**Dear Bath house guests,**_

_**Due to some 'unwanted' activities happening here lately involving towels, we kindly ask you to leave your towels on this rack.**_

_**With kind regards,**_

_**The daimyo of Water Country**_

Sakura was really starting to get agitated, but respected the rules and manners here enough to leave her towel behind.

'Besides, this fog looks think enough for no-one to notice me. Really gross though, women doing weird things to towels to the point where they're banned..'

She dropped the towel on the rack and stepped through the thick fog into more clear water. Once she neared the water she heard squeaky giggles.

'Why is gossiping so damn popular around bath houses..'

Sakura dipped her toe into the water, not looking at the other females in the bath. She was actually getting a little annoyed at the giggling, but let it pass.

"Ohohohoo!" that, however, was no giggling. Somewhere in this bathhouse was a hentai and he was probably looking at them. She kept looking around a bit, but saw nothing due to the thick fog. When she had eased her foot completely into the water she noticed a pinkish tint to the water, and quickly she noticed that blood was steadily flowing towards her. She looked up to the other women to see if they had noticed the blood. The fog still had to clear, and she could only make out simple shapes in the mist.

'Hmm...those aren't the most skinny females in the world…'

Meanwhile Kakashi was changing for his bath. He had just tied his little rope on his wrist and was tying his towel around him.

He was humming this tune that Sakura always used to sing when she was waiting for him together with Team 7 at the red bridge. Once he'd arrived, even Sasuke would softly hum along and Naruto wouldn't stop whining about 'how the song was stuck in his head.'

Kakashi didn't feel any rush as he slowly made his way to the bath. He read the sign about where the local sulfur was hauled from and how the main bath was carved out of the side of a mountain and dragged to this town by over 200 men.

'If it took them two years for those 50 miles, they were quite fast I suppose..'

The bath weighed over 200 kilograms and was moved with the famous rolling stick technique.

Getting bored by the info on the civilian technique he moved on.

He came up to the same sign as Sakura saw earlier on and took his time reading it.

"Hmmm.. sounds like Icha Icha Tactics Vol. 23 is very much into taste over here. Good use for towels.."

'Did I hear screaming?'

He turned his head towards the main area of the bath and indeed heard screaming. A wide grin appeared on Kakashi's face.

"Bingo." Kakashi snickered

Soon Sakura came racing around the corner, but what Kakashi didn't expect was that she wasn't wearing a towel.

"Sakura, you're supposed to wear a towel. Hey! I always thought you painted your hair, never guessed it was nat-" Sakura caught sight of Kakashi and quickly grew angry. The sight of an angry naked Sakura was quite the turn on for Kakashi, and an impressive nosebleed spewed through the small piece of fabric covering his face.

"If you didn't already have a bloody nose, I'd kick your ass. But it seems you're likely to die from blood loss!why didn't you warn me that this was the male onsen!" Sakura added an evil grin and walked forward and pressed her arms to the sides of her hips. Kakashi's nose bled so severely that it threw him back onto the cold floor.

"Icha Icha's not available in heaven idiot! That's what you get for luring me into here!"

She snatched a towel from the rack and tied it around her once more. Once Kakashi was properly unconscious, she calmed down a bit and walked to her locker.

The vein on Sakura's forehead decreased in size and she grabbed Kakashi off the floor as he slowly came to.

"Uh oh" Kakashi said when he saw Sakura's face. Sakura grinned evilly.

"Uh oh indeed!" Instead of punching the living daylights out of him, she did something far worse.

She gave him a simple knee to the groin. A simple, chakra induced knee to the groin that would make the pain last a little bit longer….

Just a little bit.

Maybe a day.

Maybe two.

Sakura's grin was bordering between satanic and maniacal as Kakashi slid to the ground.

'At least he didn't cry…'

She pulled Kakashi up on his feet and gave him a blood replenishment pill from her locker.

"You're mean Sakura.." Kakashi mumbled as he grabbed his clothes.

"Tell that to the three hentai who're dying in the pool from blood loss."

Sakura was already dressed while Kakashi still had to change into his boxers. She saw him fold the towel open with his back towards her. The one thing she heard as she turned her own back to him was a silent whimper of agony and pain, mixed with some despair.

Once again, shinobi revenge was very sweet.

~X~

The next day they both went different ways. Sakura went to the hospital to find out more about the disease that was haunting the hidden village. Once she had shown her orders to the Mizukage, she was very easily accepted into the village. The Mizukage gave her an uniform to fit in with the shinobi here and gave her a copy of the file with all the information on the disease.

Sakura left with the map under her arms towards the hospital. Even with the new uniform she was still stared at.

'I would stare too if I saw someone with blue hair for example..'

However, there was something even more strange around here besides her hair color. The cats here were acting weird. There was a small pack of them following her, and at first she thought they might have been nekonin, but she soon abolished that thought when one of them promptly fell of a roof. A quick observation showed it was dead instantly, with a weird knack into its tail and neck. The rest of the cats kept following her to the hospital, and soon she noticed that the other civilians were watching the cats like they were ghosts.

"Excuse me ma'am, why are the people here so scared of these cats?" Sakura asked a passerby.

"We call them "The Ontario Cats". I don't actually know why, but I believe the daimyo came up with the nickname." One of the cats came closer and started meowing like mad.

"They're crazy. All their owners have died and people say they've gone crazy from the loneliness. Some even committed suicide by jumping off of buildings and rocks."

Sakura looked at the weird cats who were licking each other's fur simultaneously. "Isn't it more plausible that they simply have health issues?"

The woman shrugged "Could be, but the cats in that pack were all loving, healthy pets until their owners died."

"Thank you for the info, but can I ask you another question?" Once the cats had left, the woman grabbed her broom and started to sweep the porch.

"Sure, ask away."

"Can you tell me anything about the epidemic going on around here?" the woman's eyes widened and she eyed Sakura up and down. Sakura's fist twitched with impatience and that seemed to scare the woman even more.

"I'm sorry, I should go!" The woman put the broom inside and called out to her son who was playing on the street.

"But you said you would he-" "I'm sorry!" Sakura got the door slammed in her face and seeing that there was some serious fear going on about the epidemic, she decided to go straight to the hospital.

While walking there she briefly read through the file the Mizukage gave her. The main symptoms were hyperhidrosis, also known as increased perspiration, redness of the facial skin, tremors and a rare case of convulsions, difficulty speaking and difficulty walking.

Sakura kept thinking of diseases to fit the pattern, but until now, nothing matched. Once she was at the hospital, she had fixed a testing trail in her head. Only thing left to do here was find the head of department.

She walked the corridors of the hospital, and heard her name being called.

"Haruno-san! Wait!" once she looked back she saw a girl running behind her. She was wearing green scrubs, and had red curls coming up underneath her surgery cap, showing she was a civilian. The girl sported a big grin and was slightly out of breath once she had reached Sakura.

"Hi, I'm Kumiko.I'm one of the apprentices of the Hospital Chief. I'm here to bring you to her." The small girl reminded Sakura of her own 14 year old self and she smiled softly.

"Nice to meet you Murakami- san. My name is Haruno Sakura. Please call me Sakura." Sakura held out her hand for the girl to shake, but the girl just kept looking at her with big eyes.

"You are THE Haruno-san from Konoha? You were apprentice to the fifth Hokage right?" Sakura nodded yes. She wasn't quite used to the idolization this girl had for her. Once she nodded, Kumiko didn't know how fast to bow to her.

"This is such an honour! I never thought I would get to meet someone like you!" The girl was bent so far over that her nose almost touched her knees. After a while, she was still bend over and Sakura quickly motioned for her to get up.

"I don't get it, you're a civilian right? How come you even know I exist?" In Konoha, the civilians only knew a handful of strong shinobi like Tsunade-sama and Kakashi, never mind them knowing any foreign shinobi.

"I used to be a chuunin, but I got attacked by a mist nin who dosed me with something to permanently damage my chakra pathways. There were three people in the entire world who could've been able to help me, Tsunade Hokage –sama, Chiyo-sama, and Ohinoke-sama. But none of them were available. Since Ohinoke-sama and Chiyo-sama are dead now, my chances of rehabilitation are very small. I was hoping that you might be able to help me?"

"Who is Ohinoke-sama? I have never heard of her? I do believe she was part of the Kangohei no Hasu.."

"Ohinoke-sama was one of the world's top medic's. She was kept secret by the Mizukage, so that she wouldn't get swarmed, and so that the Water country could keep her to itself. The Mizukage also intended this secrecy so no harm could be done to her, but she died in any way in an attack by rogue nin who invaded her house. So that didn't help much. Lots of people in the village think that it would have been better if she would have just gotten the proper protection and receive the honor that she deserved. That was about the same time that I got injured, and with Chiyo-sama dead and Tsunade-sama being Hokage, there was no more help..." The girl looked completely crushed by telling Sakura the story, and Sakura herself couldn't image not being able to be a shinobi anymore.

"You know what? I'll have a look at you when I have some time, okay? First we need to find the head of this hospital." Kumiko nodded and smiled, hoping that Sakura could make a difference.

While walking the corridors, they made small talk. Sakura asked her how she ended up as a medical intern, and Kumiko explained that there was a period while in the academy here that you had to learn medicine. The few that were talented in chakra control and had a fair amount of intelligence had the choice to study that next to the basic skills a ninja needed.

"So you were a med-nin?" Sakura asked.

"Yes, once I was 10 I started to learn how to practice medicine." Kumiko pressed a button and automatically a door opened in front of them.

"And when did you get disabled?" Sakura asked the question in a soft tone, but Kumiko still flinched when she heard the word 'disabled'.

"When I was 13." She pushed another button, and more rooms with patients became visible behind the next doors, but instead of going there, they went right and into a room with a small library.

Kumiko sat down in a chair and poured her and Sakura a cup of tea, when they heard shouting. There was a small room that looked like an office across the hall, and inside there were two other small girls and an elderly woman. The woman looked to be about 60 years old, but she was screaming at the children like she wasn't nearly that old.

"Poor Ayane and Kotone, this is the third time this week that they get scolded." Kumiko looked at the two girls across the hall with pity. Sakura looked from Kumiko to the two other girls. If those two were anything like Kumiko, then they didn't deserve that scolding. Sakura decided not to wait and find out. She crossed the hall, leaving a surprised Kumiko behind who was choking on her tea. Sakura entered the room with the bang of the door accompanying her and immediately three pairs of eyes fell upon her.

The old lady's eyes were angry at first, but mellowed out when she saw an unfamiliar face. However, the two girls' faces still showed that they were terrified of the woman, and very happy to have an interruption from the scolding.

"Please step outside ma'am, I'll be with you in a moment. I assume you are here for a family visit?"

The woman motioned towards the ward with patients and spared a moment to shoot the two girls an ugly look.

"I don't believe we have met before have we? My name is Fujiwara Midori, the head of this hospital." The woman extended her hand towards Sakura and waited for her to shake it. Sakura frowned at the woman's attitude towards her. It was insulting to Sakura that the woman thought her simple enough to ignore the scolding she just saw. Instead of shaking the extended hand, Sakura pressed the mission scroll into it. She didn't shake hands with the woman and released the scroll for her to read while she stood in the door opening with her hands on her hips.

"Well Fujiwara-san, my name is Haruno Sakura. Konohagakure Jounin, Apprentice to Tsunade-sama and member of the Kangohei no hasu. I am here to take over your position, so you may leave now."

The woman was shocked into silence and it took her a while before she rolled the scroll out and read the daimyo's message. The two girls started to whisper, and the nasty woman immediately snapped her head around to glare at the girls. Sakura frowned, surprised this woman still had the guts to do this in her presence. She snatched the scroll out of her hands and won the woman's attention.

Because of her heels Sakura was slightly taller than the woman, and she had to bend over a bit to bring her own face closer to hers.

"You've been sent on early retirement, granny. So go on and do some knitting!" she heard three soft gasps coming from the room, probably from the three girls. She smiled and the elderly woman frowned and snarled at her. She snatched the scroll from Sakura and stormed to the door, pushing Kumiko out of the way.

"This is not over yet girlie! Just you wait!" the woman stomped her way out of the ward. Leaving three stunned girls and one victorious woman behind.

~X~

"That was amazing Haruno-san!" Kumiko said, "You totally showed her!"

Sakura chuckled, embarrassed by the praise she received. Ayane was looking at the floor shyly and Kotone was looking slightly confused at how Kumiko knew this strange woman that had saved them from Midori's wrath.

"Who are you anyway?" Kotone voiced her confusion, and Kumiko immediately slapped her teammate's arm. "Ow! Why'd you do that!"

"Baka! That's THE Sakura Haruno! She can help us both get back on the field!" Kotone's eyes opened slightly, before she shrugged it off like it was nothing special.

Both girls didn't notice, but Sakura had. As soon as both girls became exited over becoming nin's again, little shy Ayane's face turned grim. Sakura thought that maybe she hadn't been a ninja like her friends, and that she feared that she would lose them both. She decided to talk to the girl once she was alone with her.

"Girls! Hey, girls!" Sakura called for attention, "Don't you think it's time we start this thing?"

All three girls sprung to her attention and stood up straight. "Hai!"

"First I want Kotone to put out a message that Fumiko-san has been relieved of all her duties and that I will be her temporary successor as named by the Mizukage herself, okay?" she handed Kotone the scroll from the Mizukage to hang with the memo. She then grabbed a small paper and scribbled some supplies on them. Kotone ran off towards the desk to write, copy and place the memo throughout the hospital.

"Second, I want Kumiko to run off to the lab and get me a list of supplies available in there, and make sure you have these supplies set up for a quick investigation." She gave Kumiko the paper and waited a moment till she ran off towards the lab.

"That leaves you and me, I guess" Sakura smiled, but Ayane's face only turned a little red before she turned it towards the ground again.

"You and me are going to take some patient samples for testing." She walked towards the door and motioned for the little girl to follow.

"So, you're not a ninja, right?" Sakura started the conversation while walking the long hospital hallways. The sings indicated the quarantine area clearly, so it wasn't hard to find.

"N-n-o, I-I'm a civilian." The girl didn't exactly stutter, she was just extremely shy. It reminded her of sweet, shy Hinata-chan back at home.

"So, let me guess, you're afraid that if I heal your friends, you'll be left alone in here, right?"

The girls eyes opened wide, and her mouth fell open. She quickly recovered, and looked at Sakura with her pearly blue eyes. "How'd you know?"

"I'm a ninja, I'm trained to know these things." Ayane quickly looked back at the ground and started to fiddle with some hair from her straight baby blue hair. She had put it out of her face and into a ponytail, but the hair was long enough to fall over her shoulder. "Oh, right" she mumbled, quickly depressed again.

"But in a short while, you'll know everything I know." The girl whimpered like she was in pain, and a few tears hit her pink scrubs. "No, I- I- I" she sobbed, and she looked ready to burst out into tears in the hallway. Sakura quickly pulled her into a more private closet, and crouched to wipe away the tears from her face. Through the sobs she was able to make out that she was denied access to the academy over here, due to complaints from higher up. Apparently her parents weren't really loved when they were alive. "I was orphaned after the daimyo was offended by my father and decided to kill his family. My mom hid me in the closet as a baby and the cleaner took me to an orphanage…"

Sakura was touched by the story, knowing that for a lot of kids in the ninja world, this was life.

"Honey, I never said anything about the academy." The now moist blue eyes looked up at her, big and wide. "I didn't want to tell you yet, so you'll have to keep it secret! I am going to the Mizukage and request to train you and your friends, but you'll have to keep it secret, okay?" she would remember those blue, happy eyes when she died, and remember that was when she made the best decision ever. It was an impulse decision, and she hadn't even thought about it before, but once she saw the smile on the girl's face, she realized this was something she just had to do. She smiled softly, and got up from her crouching position. "Come, we're going to save some lives!" and suddenly Ayane didn't walk with her face down anymore, but with pride and a big smile.

~X~

Once they had collected the samples from the patients, they headed towards the lab. They met up with Kotone on the way and Kumiko was still in the lab, finishing up with the set up. Once she spotted the trio she waved them over. "Haruno-san!"

"STOP! It's Sakura for all of you, only people who I don't work closely with have to call me Haruno-san. Now, shall we start the testing procedure?" they started testing all the samples, from urine to nail clippings and even simple skin cells. And soon they found the cause of the disease.

"Do you know what it is?" She asked her three assistants, and they nodded no. "First lesson of today, go to the library with the lab results, and find out which disease this is. The one that finds it out first gets an important chance to improve her skills." Ayane got a big smile on her face, and raced the two other girls to the library.

In the meantime Sakura grabbed the supplies she needed and paged one of the more senior med-nin's. She needed some help curing the large amount of patients in this ward.

~X~

In the library, three girls were trying to juggle various huge medical books. Landing them with a huge thud on the round table.

Kumiko sat down first, grabbing one of the huge tomes and throwing them open. "So how do we start?" Kotone shrugged and went to get a third chair. Ayane however had already started by scribbling down all the symptoms, and she took medical tome with basic knowledge to find out in which subsector she was going to search. Sakura had given her one hint: she said disease, so that was a start. All three girls tried to find the disease as soon as possible, intent to win the special lesson.

~X~

After a day of healing, Sakura decided to sent a letter to Tsunade about apprenticing the three girls. If she wanted to do this properly, she would have to take the girls back to Konoha after this mission, and clear the required forms with her Hokage to make sure she wasn't giving away any classified techniques of information. She summoned Mi-ko, her calico cat summon, and told her about the message she needed to get to Tsunade. The cat left and Sakura met with Kakashi for lunch.

"Hey, so did you find anything useful?" Sakura kept on walking to the café near the hospital. They sat down and ordered some food.

"Well, apparently everybody here hates the daimyo. I'm not sure why yet. I arranged a meeting with the Mizukage to talk about the relations between the village and the Daimyo on a diplomatic level."

"Now that you mentioned her, could you ask her about the files of three girls I work with at the hospital? I have a plan." Kakashi looked at her suspiciously, she looked like she was keeping something from him.

"Sakura…" Sakura just smiled at him secretly from over her plate. "What are you planning?"

"just a little something. Kakashi, I met these three girls, and even though they have been working in the hospital for over three years, they barely know something. Everybody gave up on them. I know there's more to it, but I plan to take them with me back to Konoha to train them properly."

Kakashi was totally surprised, "I never guessed this from you Sakura."

She snorted "Well, neither did I. I guess it's partly maternal instincts playing up. You know, my mom was pregnant with me when she was my age, and since I can't have children of my own."

Kakashi still wasn't quite over his shock, and Sakura looked a little like Ayane did this morning.

"I didn't know you were infertile.." Sakura looked at him wide eyed, "I'm not infertile Baka! I'm a shinobi, and that's practically the same."

"You know you're wrong, Sakura" Kakashi looked thoughtful. "Asuma and Kurenai have a lovely son."

Sakura frowned. "Yes, but unlike Kurenai I will continue to be a shinobi and I don't want my child to be an orphan one day."

Kakashi smiled "I bet you that you'll be pregnant someday from a handsome young man who loves you to death."

Sakura smiled "I like this alternative better, even if I die, these kids will still have their parents."

'_Well two at least..'_ Sakura thought back to Ayane's story.

She chuckled, "Kakashi, you're gonna laugh so hard, If you put me next to them, we're like a colorful box of crayons."

"How so?" Sakura smiled, "Kumiko has red hair, brown eyes, Ayane has blue hair and midnight blue eyes and Kotone has black hair and yellow eyes. It's a total mismatch."

Kakashi smiled, looking over Sakura and imagining her with three brats with eccentric hair colors running around her ankles.

"I gave them a challenge, to take the info we have gathered and find out which disease it is. They're very eager to learn new things. I think they'll need the full week to figure it out. By then I'll be done healing the patients."

"I think you underestimate them, just as I did with you" Kakashi said, pointing at her.

"yeah, but they didn't even finish their basic training. The only thing they're allowed to do is suture small wounds and clean up ER's" Sakura thanked Tsunade another time in her head for agreeing to teach her. By now they were done eating, and they went over to the counter to pay their check. Sakura paid it this time, and reminded herself to take some money out of his wallet to make sure he did pay next time.

Kakashi looked like he was thinking. "Bring them to lunch sometime, if I like them I will help you train them. But only if you get the okay from Tsunade! And ofcourse we'll have to keep this from the Daimyo."

Sakura looked at him surprised, she never expected Kakashi to be a person to lend his services when it wasn't to save the village. This was of no significance to Konoha, so it was a bit out of character for him. Nonetheless she was extremely grateful. She hugged him from behind as he walked towards the door. "Thank you! This means a lot to me." Kakashi stiffened up a bit, before he patted the arms around him a bit awkwardly.

She let him go and he assumed his nonchalant pose once again. "I know, these are your children after all." Even with his mask on she could see his smug smile.

~X~

As expected, it took the kids a week to crack it. Surprisingly, it was Kotone who had cracked it first. Sakura in the meantime, got the okay from Tsunade and to her surprise Kakashi went to the Mizukage to get permission for the apprenticeship. There was one problem, and she herself was going to sort it out with the Mizukage after she had briefed the three girls.

Kotone stepped up to her desk with the page that described the disease they thought was pestering their village, they were right. Open on her desk lay a book on "Minamata poisoning" a form of mercury poisoning by eating fish and certain other shellfoods.

Sakura had already healed all the patients and Kakashi had received all the necessary information. He had a plausible theory that could only be checked once Sakura had done her duties in the hospital.

Sakura folded her hands in front of her face. It was something she had picked up from Tsunade whenever she was thinking.

"You're right. It is Minamata poisoning."

Kotone simply stood there, but in the background Ayane smiled.

"But you're not the one who cracked it." Gasps came from the back of the room. Kotone simply smiled.

"Girls, step up to the desk please. Why don't you girls tell me what has really happened?"

Kotone started to explain what happened.

Once the girls had been at it for three days on their own, and still hadn't cracked it, they decided that it was useless to try and crack this on their own. Once they put their notes next to each other, it was very clear that it was Minamata disease.

The only thing was, if they didn't have a winner, they wouldn't get the lesson, so they decided that Kotone would get the lesson. She was the best liar and the best tutor, so she would get the lesson and teach it to them later.

"Why didn't you just tell me? I would gladly teach you all." She smiled as their eyes got wider.

"I'm glad you didn't tell them Ayane, I know I can trust you." Now two pairs of eyes turned to Ayane.

Kumiko's mouth fell open "You knew?" you knew and didn't tell us?"

Sakura stood up. "Yes, and by not telling you, she gained my trust. Girls, this challenge was for two reasons. To see if you were able to work together, and to see if you have potential for the job."

The girls looked at her intensely. They were so used to being scolded that they expected one at every turn.

"First, you're going to lunch with someone special to me while I'm at the Mizukage. After that, you'll have to pack your stuff, because you're coming with me to Konoha!"

The girls gaped at Sakura before swarming her. They couldn't believe their ears.

~X~

While the girls had lunch with Kakashi –If you duck the bill on those girls,…- she met up with the Mizukage to talk about a small problem. Well, small…

"Sakura-san, are you sure you want to take this responsibility? These girls aren't easy to deal with."

Sakura smiled, she truly wanted to help these girls. "I'm sure, so where do I sign?"

The Mizukage indicated three places on the paper, and Sakura signed it.

Things will never be the same again.

~X~

Kakashi was laughing out loud. These girls were funny. Each one reminded him of someone he knew one way or another. He actually got Kotone to laugh, and he was sure that was rare feat because even her friends looked surprised.

"See that elderly pair over there?" the girls nodded. Kakashi began making up their voices,

"'Oh, honey, I'm afraid I left my dentures at home, would you like me to go get them?'

'Oh Kutomaru, You're an amazing person you know, I love to get your dentures for you darling"

The girls burst out giggling, though Kakashi didn't find it all that funny. Apparently the girls loved him for it. Kakashi saw Sakura coming in, and waved her to their table.

"I ordered fried tempura vegetables for you, you like that right?" Sakura grabbed the reserved seat and sat down next to Kakashi. "Yeah, but I didn't know you knew that."

The food came to the table and they started to eat.

Kakashi huffed, "I show interest in you and Naruto."

"I know that, you just surprised me a bit." The girls looked at the exchange with curious eyes before Ayane voiced their mutual question.

"Are you two together?" they both looked at her with surprise before Kakashi laughed.

Sakura lifted an eyebrow "You sure got more direct." Ayane blushed a little, and Kakashi and Sakura both answered at the same time.

"We're not together." Kumiko looked surprised. "Why not?"

Sakura pointed at Kakashi "He was my sensei, so it's forbidden by law."

Kotone smirked "But that doesn't mean you don't want to…"

Sakura blushed and her mouth fell open. "YOU read too much romance novels!"

Kakashi's head turned so fast it probably spinned of his head. "Romance novels?"

"Yeah, I love Icha Icha Tactics" Kotone said. Kakashi looked like he was going to burst into tears on the spot. Sakura stopped him before he could say anything. "Stop! You- If you corrupt her in any way! I'll put Tsunade on your ass!" that shut him up. But still he whispered to her that he would take her to Jiraiya once he was in town.

They finished eating and payed the bill. "So you girls go pack your bags, and I'll come pick you up once me and Kakashi are done with the rest of our mission."

They nodded and ran off to grab their stuff. Meanwhile, Kakashi and Sakura got more serious.

They went to their rooms to change into battle gear. Kakashi had solved the mystery of the assassination attempts and they headed to the Daimyo to report.

Once they were seated before the Daimyo again they placed the scroll that contained the information about the disease on the table.

"You forgot to tell us something, Daimyo-sama. You forgot to mention that you had a lot to do with the disease. You forgot to mention that you, personally, arranged the shipment of last's month's fish. Normally you have a buyer do it for you, but not this time."

"Yes, my buyer was sick that week, and we did not have a replacement."

Sakura snorted, "That doesn't explain why you kept the fish back for another week, or why we found traces of mercury in the storage shed."

The Daimyo visibly angered. "Woman! You still don't know your place!"

Sakura chuckled, and she moved behind him so fast the Daimyo flinched. She slowly moved her head next to his, and dragged the tip of a kunai over his other cheek. "No, you don't know your place, sucker!"

She moved her kunai to his neck, and made a small controlled incision. Just enough for him to smell his own blood.

Kakashi motioned for Sakura to move his body, so she grabbed him by the collar and dragged him to the floor. She made him kneel at Kakashi's ankles as he sat down on his throne. Shame was a huge factor for casualties like the Daimyo. They fared on pride, and once you strip them of it, they're nothing.

The Daimyo cowered at Kakashi's feet, and as Sakura released him, Kakashi put a foot on the back of his head to keep him there.

"You're a pretty dumb one aren't you?" Sakura kept telling him to degrade him further. "Konoha is allies with Whirlpool ever since the fourth Hokage married one of his nins."

The Daimyo raised his head, only to have Kakashi stomp it back to the ground. "If you had done your homework, you would have known we would assasinate you eventually."

Kakashi pushed the Daimyo's head away from him. He did it hard enough to land him back on his ass instead of his knees, and Sakura placed the kunai back at his throat.

"I have a question for you, are your guards ninjas?" the lord nodded yes, afraid to even speak. "Are they well trained?" another nod. Sakura's grin got evil. "Call them, beg for their help, plead them to come and save you. "

The Daimyo wasted no time and did exactly that. "Good boy," she whispered in his ear before dropping him to the ground. She had paralyzed him from the neck down by channeling chackra through her kunai.

As the guards came in, Sakura stood up and Kakashi got out of his chair to sit next to the Daimyo. "It's not your fault. It's just that Sakura doesn't like to be insulted, and you haven't been particulary nice to her."

Sakura moved forward, and Kakashi placed the Daimyo's head so that he was forced to watch the scene. Sakura grabbed her katana from her lower back, and faced the 30 guards the Daimyo had summoned.

"Watch me, Old man. 'cause their blood is on your hands, not mine." And Sakura began, she swiped away gracefully at the thickening wall of guards. She took on 5 at a time, never stopping.

"She won't make it, they're too strong for a simple woman." the Daimyo said. Kakashi simply chuckled. "You requested me because I am the strongest shinobi in the village apart from the Hokage herself. But Pinky here beated me about a week ago into a pulp, healed me, and did it all over again.."

The Daimyo paled, "My name is Sakura, not Pinky old fart!" and she glared at Kakashi with cold emerald stony eyes while impaling another shinobi on her katana. Her face was smothered in blood and it set her eyes off even more. The entire floor was pooling with blood, and when Sakura shoved another shinobi off her sword, she made sure his bloodied face and open eyes faced the Daimyo, who now had thoroughly pissed himself.

Once she was done killing, she stood in the middle of all the bodies, in a small pool of blood. The enemies' blood dripped off of her like rain, and even long after she was done, the blood still dripped away.

The Daimyo was shaking all over as Sakura approached him. She dropped to all fours and approached him slowly until she was only an inch away from his face. "I have a nice death planned for you," she growled "You're going to drown."

A sick smile adorned her face as she heard Kakashi whine, "But I hear drowning is a peacefull way to die.." and they both heared the Daimyo sigh in relief. Sakura looked the scared man straight in the face and tilted her head to the side. Her eyes were wide as she voiced her plan. "Does that count for drowning in blood?..." she smiled before jumping up to grab the now vomiting Daimyo up from the floor.

"No, no please, no!" Sakura dragged the paralyzed man to the center of the bodies, and dropped him with a loud thud and slight splash. Kakashi put his foot on the back of his head again, pushing his face under in the puddle. The last thing the poor man heared was the evil chuckle of Sakura as she left the office with Kakashi.

~X~

They both soaked their bodies, and with it their clothes, in the bathhouse Kakashi was sure he saw while passing the office on the day of their arrival. The water was getting redder by the minute, but neither cared as they soaked the stress and the blood away.

"Did you have to be so cruel today?" Kakashi voiced his concerns. Sakura just kept her eyes closed and sighed. "Dying of Minamata poisoning is very painfull, and even the survivors have a shorter life expectancy. He will make people suffer even after his death. He deserved it to be painful and cruel." she dipped her head under to wash out the blood, and she only succeeded in making it slightly lighter, a more strawberry red. All her clothes were clean, and just needed to dry before they left the place.

Kakashi was still worried however. "But you're totally fine now?"

Sakura stepped out of the bath, and grabbed a towel to dry her hair. "Yeah, I told you already, it was an act. Look at me, I'm fiiine!" she grabbed his face and he looked in her eyes. He found the sparkle that she was missing before, and was relieved again.

"Okay, I trust you." Sakura smiled her gentle smile again. "Thanks. Now, if you go get his head, I'll pack our stuff and get some dry clothes out for you so we can go meet our girls" he nodded and went to go get the Daimyo's head. It was a security measure to make sure he was dead and for bounty hunters to gather their money. He cut it of cleanly and put it in a special foldable box. Once done, he headed back to their room.

'_Our girls,... I guess they are sort of ours.. We are their only lifeline once we get back to Konoha'_

He entered their room and stipped to his boxers. He threw the wet clothes in his backpack, and looked at the new clothes Sakura put out for him.

He heard snickers behind him and he turned around to see Sakura holding a pair of his boxers.

"Pink elephants? Really?" she folded them out for the world to see. He snatched them from her hands and glared at her. "I don't go through your underwear, you don't go through mine!"

Sakura put her hands up as a sign of peace or surrender. "Hey! Be nice to me! I washed them for you because you didn't have any clean ones left."

Kakashi looked from the boxers in his hands to Sakura. "You.. Washed my underwear.."

Sakura looked at him and put her fists in her sides. "Yeah, well, someone has to do it and it wasn't going to be you. So go change so we can pick up the girls and leave this village."

Kakashi grabbed his clothes and walked towards the bathroom. Maybe Sakura's maternal insticts were stronger than he thought.

Kakashi figured he kinda liked the domestic vibe...


	8. Of Doujutsu's and Doors

"So, where are we going to live? And what are we going to train on? How long do we have? And is food very expensive? I don't have a lot of money.. And how-" Kumiko kept rambling and rambling on and on, which was understandable, she was just very nervous.

They all had a different way to cope with nerves, and the rambling only reminded Sakura more of her younger self. Ayane had turned back into her old persona, being shy and silent the entire three day trip. Kotone was like a miniature Kakashi, they read Icha Icha all day while on the road. Only Kotone didn't have the ninja skills Kakashi has, so she kept tripping over roots and stuff.

It was very cute.

"Okay, let's stop here for the night and set up camp." when the girls didn't budge, she motioned for them to start setting up camp, and it was like they woke from a trance.

She and Kakashi started hauling water to the camp. They quickly located the stream of water they had heard. They took two buckets and went there to fill them.

"So where are they going to live? I'd offer my place but it's too cramped for three kids." Sakura smiled, the guy was too sweet for his own good sometimes.

"I bought something special for them and me. I'll never be short of space again, that's for sure. " Sakura took off her shoes and put her feet in the water. Might as well catch some fish for dinner.

"What did you buy then?" Kakashi watched her as he put his own feet in the water to join her.

"The Uchiha compound.." Kakashi dropped his bucket. "It was really cheap. Makes sense, people wouldn't want to live on a mass homicide camp either."

Sakura caught a fish and threw it onto the dry. "Sakura, isn't that kinda drastic? These kids are going back to their families soon and you'll be stuck with an huge empty compound..."

Sakura catched a second fish before sitting down on the water's edge, feet still in the water. She patted the spot next to her and Kakashi sat down.

"They don't have families. They're all orphans. The village shunned them because their parents had a different political opinion. Their parents were killed when they were 5 years old. They don't even know their family names."

Sakura looked at the water. It was rippling slightly around her feet. She listened to the trees whispering, and to the birds singing. She loved the outdoors.

"You know I still feel bad for how I treated Naruto.. He didn't have anybody who loved him and we all made it worse by doing nothing. I just don't want that to happen to them."

Kakashi said nothing, he just stared at her. They just heard the water flowing for about ten more minutes before Sakura broke the silence.

"I adopted them...They need a fair chance at life."

"So what happened to your 'I don't want to orphanize my children' theory?"

She looked him straight in the eyes. There was so much intensity in her eyes that his heart skipped a beat.

"They're not my children. If I die on a mission, they will have known love, education, and even if I die, they will have a good chance at life: a warm home, loving friends, hopefully someone who will take them under their wing. They will have a new chance in a non predjudiced village. We'll see what happens."

"Still, they will be heartbroken if you do die. And they'll have no one to look after them."

Sakura nodded. "True, but even if I only taught them and I would die once they were back in whirlpool they would be devastated. It would be the same for me in our relationship. "

Kakashi nodded. "It's very noble of you. I guess. I wouldn't have been able to do it." He moved to stand up, but Sakura's hand on his shoulder pulled him down again. She fidgeted, so he figured she had something else to tell him.

"In Waterfall, a single shinobi parent cannot adopt children for the very same reason I don't want children.."

He knew where she was going with this. "You didn't..."

"Yes, but I had no choice. I had to sign someone as the adoptive father..

Look, Kakashi, I don't need you to BE the father! It's just on paper! Remember how we all signed our shinobi oath. We break it all the time. You dont have to do anything.."

Kakashi stood still, Sakura could see the thoughts running through his head. Suddenly he stood up with his back turned to her.

"I need time to think. I'm not going to stay, but I'll be near.." he disappeared into the thick leaves of the tree, and Sakura was left behind with three fish and a bucket of water. She listened to the whispers of nature and let out a sigh.

~X~

"So once we get there, you're going to meet the Hokage and then I'll give you your first lesson." Sakura explained their plans to the girls.

She wasn't going to tell them she adopted them yet. She intended to make it something special. The gravity of the situation weighed on Sakura. She had enough money for the four of them, even with the recent purchase of the compound. She just questioned if her mental ability was strong enough for motherhood. Even though her mother had had her at this age, these are THREE teenage girls. Still, this wasn't the same. What she told Kakashi was true, she did adopt them, but she wasn't intending to be their mother. As soon as she told them, she would give them a choice...

Sakura answered all their nervous questions on their way home. They kept badgering her and she kept assuring them all would be fine.

Sakura paused. The girls had slowed their paces.

"Girls, come on! We're nearly there.."

A few seconds later they had stopped walking entirely, and were staring up at the huge gate that was the entry way to Konoha.

Sakura kept calling for them, and they slowly started walking again, staring up whilst they walked.

As Konoha protocol, one of the guards greeted them ourside of the gate. Izumo shunshinned next to Sakura. Ayane wasn't used to ninjas, and jumped once Izumo appeared out of nowhere.

"Hey Sakura, I have orders to bring you to the Hokage. Where's Kakashi?" they kept on walking while they talked, and Sakura gave him a knowing look.

"Around.." Izumo nodded. "Can these girls use chakra?"

Sakura looked at the girls. She knew Kotone still had chakra, so she could leap rooftops while she carried Ayane and Kumiko.

"One can. But I'll take them to the Hokage myself, I want them to get used to the surroundings." Izumo nodded, and dissapeared into the leaves.

The girls walked into the huge village and revelled in the strange smells, colors and plants. Compared to Waterfall, Konoha was a giant village.

The walk to the Hokage tower was short. She would have to show them the rest of the village later, but even this small part of town had them in wonder.

Tsunade waited for them in her office, and greeted the girls with enthousiasm. Sakura talked to Tsunade for a while before Tsunade turned to the girls.

"You must be Kumiko." Kumiko nodded and Tsunade motioned her over to the bench in her office. Sakura moved next to Tsunade, and she asked Kumiko to lie down.

"I already did a quick exam. There are four mayor blocks in her pathways, probably from a crystallized substance." Tsunade nodded. She understood why she needed to help her. Sakura could have solved the problem, but the blocks were linked to each other. The others would spread in the chakra stream if you removed one of them at a time. This wasn't rare, but was very difficult to remove and could've cut the pathways up beyond repair. It needed at least two people with medical abilities such as Sakura or Tsunade.

Tsunade placed her hands on Kumiko's shoulder as Sakura explained the procedure to the girl.

A civilian has no stream or movement in his/her chakra. The blokages in Kumiko's chakra paths forced Kumiko's chakra to stop flowing. If they dissolved the blocks, they could store the pieces in her bloodstream, and then filter it out. "This might tickle a bit."

Once done explaining, Sakura placed her hands on her sternum and bellybutton and two pairs of hands started to glow green.

Slowly, after a while, Kumiko could feel her chakra starting to flow again, and she revelled in the feeling. She finally understood what people meant with the saying "Some things you just don't appreciate 'till they're gone".

Once they were done, they asked her to sit up, and Tsunade sterilized and sedated a part of her arm near her veins. She then cut a vein on her arm, and before too much blood could flow out, Sakura put both her hands above it and made the flow lessen. Tsunade got a bowl, and Sakura started running the blood from Kumiko's skin, through Sakura's chakra infused hands, and back into Kumiko's veins.

Once in a while, Sakura stopped the flow for a few seconds, and held one hand above the bowl. She dispelled the chakra and an amber-colored fluid splashed in the bucket. She repeated this a few times before all the blood was cleaned, and she quickly closed the wound.

"Wow Sakura, I wouldn't have been able to come up with a way to do this without the water." Tsunade looked with pride at her apprentice.

Even though the fifth Hokage had formed most of the modern day medicine, she knew that Sakura was going to change it even further, making it more accessible for everybody.

"I have more to show you later shishou, but first I've got to show these girls where they live." She teased the kids slightly, loving the anticipated looks on their faces. "You go wait outside, I have to tell the Hokage something private." The girls left the room, Kimeko still watching her hands to see if this all was real. Once they were gone, Sakura turned to Tsunade.

"I did as you suggested in your letter, but he's really confused now that I told him. He's around here somewhere so I doubt he's really serious." Tsunade sat down on her own desk. She had suggested that Kakashi be the girls' adoptive father, and now there was another mess she needed to clean up.

"I do still think this is essential for him to do. He needs to connect again with people. I tried to do so with you as his team, but it failed when you split up again.." Tsunade thought deeply.

"I have another mission for you, Sakura, but it's a heavy long-term one, so I'll leave it alone for another month. Go get settled in, and I'll assign Kakashi as the girls' sensei."

Sakura nodded, she hoped the mission wasn't too long. Obviously she had other occupations now. She bowed to her leader, and walked towards the door. She was about to step through when Tsunade stopped her. "Sakura, I'm sure he'll come around eventually, ok?" she smiled at her shishou.

"If you say so, shishou."

~X~

"Oh waaauw" three small voices were heared near the training fields of Konoha.

Ayane's eyes were as big as saucers, and Kumiko was staring at the huge place with her jaw on the floor.

Kotone was only mildly surprised. "Is this where we're going to live?"

Sakura smiled, and put her fists in her sides. "Yup! And there are a few other people who will live here in a few days." She stepped up to the rusty gate and ripped off some of the prohibited signs. She grabbed a key from her pouch, and turned it in the huge lock that was connected to various chains.

The chains fell to the floor, and the gates opened with some squealing and creaking.

Sakura looked into the compound. "Kumiko, could you grab some paper and a pen?"

The redhead girl pulled her huge pack from her back and rummaged around till she found what she needed. "Got it."

"Okay write down what I say: Oil the gate hinges." She looked in and around and named some other chores to be done. They hadn't even entered yet, and there was already a ton of things to do. Sakura looked at the wall next to the gates and noticed the compound name and function. She ripped the plate from the

wall with force and studied it for a moment.

*'Uchiha Compound, Military Police Force'*

She threw the plate in the trash. "Buy new Compound Sign.." They finally walked onto the grounds. She closed the gates and walked through the endless roads leading to all the houses the compound held.

"Call roofing company, make fence, de-weed gardens, plant flowers," That was the last thing to do. They had reached the main building in the middle of the compound. This was where Sasuke had lived his childhood. This was where Itachi thought of all his mass homicide plans. This place reminded Sakura of so much of things that were ancient history now. Even then, it still depressed her a bit.

Pushing aside the horrid thoughts, she grabbed another key from her pouch and opened the doors to their new house. She let the kids in first, she herself decided to straighten her thoughts a bit before coming in. No sense in getting the girls all depressed. She entered the house and put her shoes next to the four other pairs standing near the door.

She heared the girls scream in where she knew the living room was. All through the house you could heartheir giddy screams and giggles. suddenly she heared somebody shush the girls, and it went quiet. she heard Kumiko yell her name once before everythong went quuet again.

Sakura went on high alert and blended in with the shadows. Once she reached the living room, she saw her girls sitting behind the couch, holding in their laugh, and all adrenaline faded away as she dropped the technique and stepped out of the shadows.

"Girls, you shouldn't scare me like that! I thought you were being

ambushed!" Sakura put her fists in her sides to look serious, but the girls kept giggling and looking at her from behind the couch. She kept looking at them, trying to figure out what was going on..

Suddenly her instincts flared up, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Her instinct screamed at her to turn around.

She spun on her heel, and looked up to a manly chest. Killing intent taking over, she quickly punched him in the stomach, no chakra, and met iron hard muscles. She looked up, into one eye.

Realizing it was Kakashi, she quickly pushed him away.

"YOU IDIOT! I could've killed you!" Sakura wasn't really pissed, just annoyed that he could still sneak up on her so easily. Kakashi just laughed, and moved his arms above his head. He moved them up and down, imitating a

really bad ghost.

"BOO!"

Sakura heard loud laughter come from behind the ground, and as the adrenaline and anger faded away she started to laugh too. Kakashi moved up to her with his weird arms. Sakura laughed and moved away towards the couch.

"Are you scaaaaaared?" Kakashi closed in on her, and she kept trying to push him back.

"Kakashiiiii!" Once she reached the back of the couch, Kakashi pushed her over it, landing her between the girls.

"Owwww, that hurt." Sakura giggled to him from her spot on the floor. She layed back down and looked around. This place was awfully clean for a house that was uninhabited for over 15 years..

Kakashi ushered the kids upstairs to go pick a room, and he himself sat down on the bench next to Sakura's legs.

"I cleaned the place up for them." He crossed his arms over his legs and watched Sakura stare at the ceiling.

"Why'd you come here?" Sakura moved her eyes from the ceiling to Kakashi's face, and he shrugged.

"Questions, I guess." He turned his eyes to his hands, and Sakura moved to get up from the ground. Kakashi kept staring at the palms of his hands.

"Are you planning on being their mother?"

Sakura lounged back on the sofa.

"No. More of a guidance, or a teacher."

Kakashi simply nodded, and it was silent for a few minutes.

"Okay."

Sakura didn't dare to move. "'Okay', what?"

"I'll help you.."

Sakura turned her head towards him, eyes wide. They could hear the girls banging doors and laughing in their rooms.

"Why?.." It was a simple question, and still Kakashi couldn't look at his female teammate.

"Because I wished someone had given me such a chance.." and Sakura noticed that Kakashi was nervous, becahse for the first time in over eleven years, he let someone into his life again.

Sakura saw a normal stoic and silent Kakashi start to tear at the edges, and she knew this wasn't something simple. He was ruffling the sleeves of his sweater, and kept tapping his feet. However simple, these were things that showed Kakashi's emotions more than ever.

If she was still his twelve year old student, she would have hugged him, and told him things would be better soon, before she left him again to chase after Sasuke.

But now, she was his nineteen year old colleague and friend, so she simply sat next to him silently, and put a hand on his knee for comfort. She squeezed it a few times before he turned normal again. He put his hand over hers, and slightly squeezed it before standing up. He looked like he was about to leave.

"Stay for dinner. I'm going to tell them today.." Sakura looked up to him from her sitting position, and watched him turn around and give her his infamous eye crinkle smile. "Sure, why not."

She smiled back at him, and stood up just as the girls came racing down the stairs.

"Sakura, Sakura! Can we really pick ANY room we want?" even Kotone was really excited now, and you could see that the girls were so happy to be given the chance to be here.

"Almost every room. I will be sleeping in the mayor bedroom at the end of the hall."

"Okay!" They raced up once again, bickering who would get what room. Kakashi chuckled at the girls' enthousiasm.

"Want to help me go shopping for groceries?" Sakura looked at Kakashi.

"Sure, but are you going to leave them here?" Sakura shook her head as a no.

"Tsunade-sama wants to see them for a bit to examine if they are fit to become shinobi of Konoha. She knows about the entire situation."

Kakashi nodded, and called the girls downstairs. Sakura packed her things to go shopping while Kakashi told them what was going to happen.

"...and she' going to do some simple tests, okay?" the girls nodded and Kakashi ushered them towards the door, giving her the 'go' sign by creasing his eye.

They walked to the tower first, as it was easier to drop the girls of first. After that they went into the supermarket and grabbed a basket for their groceries. They made small talk for a while before settling into a comfortable silence.

Sakura couldn't help but think about the man walking next to her. One moment he was totally frustrated with her and would leave her, and another moment he comes over, having cleaned the house and was all caring and in for it.

There was more going on and she just knew it. The only problem was getting him to tell her what was up..

"I really think that you could be a great father, you know." she only got a weird look from him. Realizing what she had said, she desperately tried to fix the situation.

"I..I mean, ofcourse, um.. Well, you were like a parent to, um, Naruto and Sasuke.." she quickly trailed of, noticing the awkwardness of the whole conversation. By now she was blushing furiously, and looking at the ground like there was no tomorrow.

Kakashi simply looked to be thinking about what she said.

"You really think that?" he grabbed some breakfast articles from a shelf.

Sakura looked up, blush still in place."Well, yeah. I was wondering why you hadn't had any children yet."

Kakashi laughed. "Normally you are in a stable, healthy relationship once you have children. Obviously, I don't have one of those."

He put his hands on the back of his neck, and walked out of the aisle and into the next one.

"Didn't you have any relationships in the four years I was gone?" Sakura was still blushing a bit, but she willed it to go down.

"I'll make it even better, I haven't had a relationship in the seven years that I know you." They were at the ninjas supply cabinets now and for a while they changed the subject.

"I think we should buy some standard ninja equipment for Kumiko and Kotone, and get a 'starters kit' for Ayane, right?" Sakura said.

"Yes, and some chakra paper to see what their affinities are. And do we need the standard academy books for Ayane?" Kakashi loaded the basket to the rim, they had enough to live on for a while.

Sakura shook her head. "No, I was planning on giving her my old ones, they have some helpfull notes in the sidelines which could help her." Kakashi nodded and they walked on.

"So you did think about having children?" Sakura dug up the old conversation. Meanwhile Kakashi went to get another cart.

"Sure, I'm not really young anymore. My father had me at age 30, I'm 33 now. I guess it's one of the reasons why I decided to help you..." Sakura nodded, that makes sense. She had been having similar thoughts.

"So let me guess, you don't do relationships because..." she paused to look at him, trying to see if he betrayed anything by the look on his face "..you like the title of most sought after bachelor?"

He smiled. Wrong answer. At least she tried, right?

"Oh, yes. Because you KNOW I'm that superficial..." okay, that was true. And she hadn't really expected him to say yes.

"Ha-ha! So tell me then." He didn't answer immediately, and Sakura suspected he did it to built momentum. He inhaled deeply before he looked at her and gave her a sincere answer.

"There hasn't been anyone in my life that suited me, I guess." he looked at her so intensely that she had to look away. This wasn't the Kakashi that she had known before. This one actually talked about feelings and thoughts and his past...

This wasn't the same person.

He joked with her, he teased, he smiled, he smiled again but sincerely, he talked most importantly...

Funny thing was that Sakura didn't see this man as 'kakashi-sensei', but as 'Kakashi'. A whole new person was next to her. He was like a stranger to her before, and now...

"Kakashi, what do you think about our relationship?" Sakura really wanted to know if she was thinking in some weird way. Kakashi looked pensive for a moment, and held his hand to his chin as if he was solving something really difficult.

"I don't know. It's actually quite weird. Hmmm.." so he was just as confused as she was.

"Do you still see me as your student?" Unconciously, Sakura put her left thumb on her chin and started chewing on the nail. She picked up a lot of dfferent ticks while travelling, this being one of them.

"No, actually. It's like I know 2 Sakura's.. The old one and the new one. Funny, 'cause I still see Naruto as a student.."

Naruto... NARUTO! 'SHIT! I totally forgot!'

"FUCK!" with her yell Sakura turned heads in the entire shop, and KaKashi also looked slightly startled.

"I forgot! I intended to invite Naruto over for dinner too! Oh god, I have to sent him a note or he'll be halfway Ichiraku Ramen by now!" she quickly scribbled a note with a pen from her ninja pack and held her hands in a tiger seal. Quickly, Her calico cat summon Mi-ke appeared, without smoke, and took the note. She was off before most civillians had seen her.

"Two questions! One, don't we need extra food if Naruto is coming to dinner?" Kakashi looked slightly startled first, especially since Sakura had acted really fast. Now though, she was just as normal as always. Maybe except the slightly roused hair.

"Ehm, no, because I'm buying enough ingredients so we can have all we want." Kakashi nodded.

"And two, how the hell did you summon with a tiger seal and without smoke?" this was a question she had expected.

"Easy. I have, same as you, a pack of summons. They all differ in appearance right?" he nodded. "So instead of sending them all back to their realm, I keep all of them here. They are fine with this realm because cats are a lot more content in solitude then combined. If they wanted, I set up a window for them so they could scrounge the woods. I still have to set up a room for them in the mansion, but after that, they'll be staying there. Mi-ke here, she follows me around everywhere. She occasionally switches with Savannah but she likes my company. She can get any of the other cats if I need them."

"That makes sense, my dogs always want to go back to their realms, but I've seen permanent summons before."

"We agreed that the tiger seal would be my sign to 'summon' them." while Sakura had held her speech about her summons, they had found an unoccupied cash counter, and they started to put all the products on the conveyor belt so she could read their barcodes and add up the prices. Meanwhile, Mi-ke came back with a note from Naruto. She took the note first.

"Go get the others, and go to Shun's favorite spot in the woods. Climb over the walls and wait near the compound gates." the cat nodded and was off again. While they put on more products, Sakura unfolded the note. It was her own note, but on the otherside was a sloppily written response:

'Sure, will do! Thanks for the invite.'

Next to the word invite was a huge splotch of ramen broil, and she showed the note to Kakashi. She tapped her finger to indicate the stain.

"I don't think we have to worry about Naruto not leaving enough for us.." Kakashi looked at the stain and laughed.

"Geez, Naruto..."

They exited the store after Sakura paid for the food. Problem was, they had too many bags to carry on their own. So, once again Sakura formed a tiger seal and Mi-ke appeared. "Get 'Kashi-neko please"

Quicker than Kakashi expected did the big cat appear with the calico cat. Another nod from the smaller cat, and she was off. 'Kashi-neko was wearing the same vest as he had while on the mission, but once Sakura touched the vest with chakra infused hands, seals appeared. She made some seals with her hands and touched the vest again. Once the smoke cleared, there were two huge bags spanning from the cat's neck to his tail. Sakura loaded the shopping bags into the huge bags on the cat.

"He carried a boulder once, hea 'Kashi?" the big cat nodded proudly and Sakura scratched him behind his ears. She leaned over to his ear and whispered to him. "Don't tell the others that you're my favourite, 'Kay?"

Kakashi smiled. He did that with his own pack too. He told each of them that they were his favourite, and that they couldn't tell the others. It made them feel better, and a good relationship like this could save your life.

They loaded all their bags onto 'Kashi-neko with the exception of four smaller bags. On their walk back to the mansion they got a few weird looks from civilians. It wasn't any ordinary day that you saw a huge grey panther walking through the village.

Once there, they put all the groceries in their right places and put the bags away. Kakashi went to read his book while Sakura went to get the cats who were still waiting at the door. She showed them a room with a big sliding door towards the woods and near the livingroom. Sakura often had her cats there as well for comfort.

"I need you to stay here and come out one for one, so I can introduce you to some new family members."

Suddenly all the cats ears perked up. Shouts of "Sakura, have you had kittens since we last saw you?" and "Yay, I'm no longer the youngest!" and other stuff filled the room and Sakura had to lift her hands to calm them.

"First of all, Savannah, you will still be the youngest." a deep sigh came from the crowd.

"Second of all, I adopted these 'kittens'. I expect you all to treat them if they were my own. And another thing, I need you to not tell them they're adopted yet. I want to tell them personally."

Nods and murmurs of approval. Then, suddenly, everyone went quiet.

Shun had stepped up.

The cheeta of the pack. Everyone noticed and immediately went quiet. When Shun moved, she either had something to say, or something to kill.

They just all hoped she was talkative today.

"Sakura."

"Yes, Shun" Sakura said it with authority in her voice. Shun could kill her if she wanted, but the contract prevented it from ever happening. She might be a deadly cat, she was still HER deadly cat.

"There is another reason why we're here right? I smell you all over this place." Sakura smiled. Her cats were never dumb. Problem was, cats hate moving houses. They get panicky immediately. And however intelligent these particular cats are, they are still cats.

"We're moving here."

And as expected, panic ensued. Some vanished into the woods, others desperately began sniffing the empty room, but she left them to it. They were all trained, so soon they would be normal again. Only two cats still hadn't moved from their places.

Kakashi and Shun didn't move. They simply waited for other orders or their dismissal. "Dismissed, go sniff around you two."

Shun had disappeared immediately into the woods after Sakura was done talking. Kakashi simply went over to her side. She smiled. She really had meant it when she said he was her favourite. But she said it to the others too, so they wouldn't feel left behind. It was simply too hard. Kakashi was near her almost constantly, and he had protected her with his own life a few times now.

The first time that he had been fatally injured, she had used all sorts of human medecine to heal him. He was okay afterwards, but collapsed two weeks later. Once she took him to a zoo veterinarian, he saw that his organs had mended into a different tissue than normally. Sakura had tried to mend his tissue into human tissue. He needed an extensive 20 hours surgery.

Sakura felt so guilty, that for each species of cat she had, she bought a book. She learnt them from cover to cover, and even stayed with the veterinarian for a while to learn how to heal them properly. It worked, but Kakashi still had a huge scar on his belly in the shape of a circle with a mirrored thunderblast through it.

She petted his head a bit as they walked towards the living room. The only piece of furniture was her white leather sofa.

"Actually, where is the rest of my furniture?"

The human Kakashi, who was currently on said couch, shrugged his shoulders.

"A genin team dropped the couch of earlier. They looked quite pale and tearful, so I told them to take the day off." next to her, 'Kashi-neko stiffened up and put his ears in his neck. Before he could turn away, she grabbed him by the skin of his neck.

"Kakashi..." two creatures looked at her. One noticed it wasn't meant for him and continued to read his porn novel.

"Spill it!" The cat looked like it might decide to break the contract by running away, not caring that he'd lose his life.

"Well, we weren't expecting anybody, and they were taking 'The Good Couch', so Shun and I pounced them." Sakura's eyes opened wide, and then she face palmed herself.

"Goddddd, what am I going to tell Tsunade..." She let the cat go and he took a big step away from her.

"If it helps, they weren't hurt, just really really scared." Kakashi offered from his couch.

"Tsunade could have you killed for this, you know?" the big cat just looked at his mistress and nodded. Sakura sighed before she jumped over the couch let herself sag down on it. 'Kashi-neko walked around it. He sat down in front of it, and stared intently at Kakashi. He swiped his tail hence and forth over the wooden floor.

Kakashi took one look at him over his book. "What?" 'Kashi-neko took his eyes off him for the first time to look at Sakura. She, in turn, looked at Kakashi and explained. "They call this The Good Couch because I let them on it to cuddle. I guess what he means is-"

"Either you move, or I move you." 'Kashi-neko finished for her. Kakashi simply looked at him once more before he turned back to his book. "No"

You could see the big cat think 'Wrong answer' before he jumped up on the armrest of the couch on Sakura's side. His weight tipped it on two legs, and before Kakashi could realize what was happening, he was sliding toward Sakura by the gravity.

Sakura's eyes widened before their bodies collided, resulting in a huge 'oomph' from them both. The power of the collision sent them both toppling over the side, and into 'Kashi-neko, if he hadn't jumped on the exact moment he needed to.

The couch landed back on four feet, and with it 'Kashi-neko landed on his paws before he laid down on his back. On the floor were a very surprised Sakura and a very squished Kakashi. Kakashi had managed to turn them around so they not only landed on their backs instead of their faces, but also so that Sakura landed on top of Kakashi instead of the other way round.

He held her with his arms around her belly to her chest, and Kakashi moaned in pain from the impact.

"Oh god Sakura" Kakashi moaned. "And here I thought this was all going to be sweet and nice. Your pussy is mean!" Kakashi himself thought it was a funny innuendo. But Sakura, a closet pervert he knew, didn't say anything.

"Sakura?" He couldn't see anything due to Sakura's long hair, and only when he let her go and she moved up did he see what was going on.

In the door opening stood a very baffled Naruto. He was smiling, but it was the kind of smile that he recognized from Jiraiya. Naruto walked up to Kakashi, helped him up and slapped him on the back.

"Good catch Kakashi-sensei! I know a lot of people who would like to be in your place." Kakashi just stood there baffled. Naruto then turned to Sakura. "Good catch Sakura-chan! But don't tell others, they might get jealo-"

He didn't get any further, because Sakura had knocked him down. She pulled him up again and slapped him awake. Once he was conscious again, she let him go to stand on his own.

"Don't assume things. Naruto, meet my 'pussy' Kakashi, Kakashi meet Naruto." 'Kashi-neko sat up on the couch so Naruto could see him. The back of the couch was still turned towards the doorway, so Naruto couldn't have seen him before. Naruto's eyes went wide and he started to scream bloody murder.

"Sakura! Do something about the cat!" he kept on yelling. To bring him back, she just lightly smacked his cheek.

"Baka! This is one of my summons!" 'Kashi-neko nodded to him and laid back down. Naruto was really surprised. "Why do you have summons if you work in the hospital all the time?"

She had almost forgotten. Kakashi was the only person who had noticed she had been gone these four past years. Everyone else just assumed she had been in the hospital.

She decided to change subjects for a while. She explained to Naruto that she had adopted three kids, and he got tears in his eyes when he was told their stories. She asked Kakashi and Naruto if they could pick the girls up at Tsunade's and take 'Kashi-neko with them. He had some explaining to do. She also gave Kakashi a scroll to request another genin team to move her stuff from the old apartment.

Once they left, she started on dinner. She made various items so everyone would have something they liked, Ramen for Naruto, Miso soup for Kakashi, Tempura for Kumiko, Sushi for Ayane, and Onigiri for Kotone. She made enough for everyone and even made some side dishes. Once everything was being prepared on it's own, she sat down. She wrapped the ninja gear for the girls and just as she had put them away did she hear a doorknob turning. Once the door was opened, Ayane came flying through, blue hair billowing behind her.

"I did it, I did it! I can channel chakra!" Sakura spread her arms to catch her and Ayane came flying into her hug. Sakura smiled, day two and already so much progress.

Ayane told her how she had learned to channel chakra, how she had improved her leniency and how she had learned to ommit killer intent. Kumiko and Kotone had big smiles on their faces and they helped put everything on the table. As they sat down, all three had told their stories and were happily eating. Once they were done, there was a comfortable silence. This was the moment.

"So, everyone." She looked around the table and looked everyone in the eye. Kakashi could feel she was nervous and gave her a sincere smile. She saw and smiled back a little. "I'm not gonna hold a very long speech, because it's not my style. But I do have a few very important announcements to make. First concerns the girls; I told you that you would be staying for six months. That's not entirely true. You can stay longer if you want to."

the girls looked at each other with quizzing looks. "How long?" Sakura really felt awkward about these things. She just couldn't say it straight forward. "Well, till you're eighteen! But right about that time I hope you've moved out." still weird looks. She sighed why wasn't this easy?

"Look, I am your legal guardian now. I, eh, I adopted you." there was a long silence before she herself broke it again.

"You can choose. You stay six months, or you stay longer. And you don't have to choose right away. Just think about it." Sakura hadn't even noticed that she was this nervous about their opinions. Okay, she had taken them from their country for six months, and later they find out for their whole lives, but that's not something to worry about right?

Kumiko stood up from her seat with her head bowed low. She walked up to and wrapped her arms around her. She heard little sniffles, and when Kumiko looked up she could see that she was crying.

"Th-Th-Tha-Thank yo-ou-ou-u-u!" she was surprised. She knew they weren't being treated well, but this was a bit extreme. She saw that Naruto was also crying, as well as Ayane. Kotone was trying really hard not to and was biting her lip hard, and Kakashi just smiled at her.

'Good job' he seemed to say. She ruffled Kumiko's hair and dried her tears with a clean napkin. Once she was back to her seat and everybody had dried their tears did she start her speach again.

"Second of all, Naruto, as you can see, I bought this place. And with this place I mean the entire compound. I'd like to offer you one of the houses, because I've been to your appartment and your landlord clearly overcharges you." Sakura actually scoffed.

Naruto didn't go all dramatic on her like she had expected. "Sakura, I can't accept that. I really the idea, but you don't need to do this for me. Look, you probably payed a lot of money for this all, and I can't sit here knowing that you're broke. Just sell the houses seperately."

"Look, Naruto. First of all, my last mission pay alone was enough to cover these costs. Second of all, you're being ripped off, and I have an empty house. There's no better deal than that."

"I can't live here for free, I would feel guilty all the time."

Sakura smiled. "Okay, I'll make you a deal. You can live here, as long as you pay for someone to keep your house clean. Nobody likes the mess you make of it. And as long as you take one of these three off my hands to train them once in a while."

Naruto smiled. "Deal. I already like them anyway."

Sakura walked up to the kitchen and as she passed him she said "You do have to make it livable yourself though." and Naruto wailed a bit as Sakura went to get dessert.

Dessert was a chocolate cake with raspberries on it. And everybody talked amongst each other while eating. The girls talked with Kakashi, and Sakura had a great opportunity to talk to Naruto. To her surprise, he started the conversation.

"So what have you been up to lately?" Sakura pricked around in her cake for a while.

"I'm on a jounin team with Kakashi now." Naruto looked surprised, and then smiled. "Cool! We could spar sometime soon then! I'm training to become ANBU." he was obviously very excited, and she didn't want to burst his bubble. She knew that it was forbidden for an ANBU to train with an applicant. She looked at Kakashi. He had stopped talking to the girls and had turned to their coversation. He met Sakura's eyes and he thankfully took over.

"Sorry Naruto," She was already envisioning Kakashi telling Naruto some lame excuse why they couldn't spar. It was what he did best after all. So she definitely didn't expect the next part.

"But you know applicants can't spar with members."

Her eyes widened, as did Naruto's. His eyes quickly turned to her face in surprise. She was accros the table from him, and he quickly grabbed the sleeve of the simple white shirt she was wearing, and dragged it up her arm. The ANBU tattoo on her arm was quite visible now.

"Why? Why didn't you tell me?" he looked at her with sadness in his eyes. Not the kind of sadness when you lost a race you didn't know you participated in, but truly hurt sadness when you weren't told about something important.

"Because you know nothing about me." he flinched. Talk about rubbing salt into fresh wounds. He flicked his eyes to Kakashi. The message sent was obvious. 'Did you know abou this?' Kakashi simply looked at the girls and talked them into clearing the table with him.

Once he was gone, Sakura started on her story. How she hadn't been in the hospital these last years. How Kakashi had known and no one else. How she almost lost her life a billion times and survived. How alone she was. How much she had learnt. How she had developed and how she got promoted from Chuunin to ANBU in one go. She even showed him the vague outline of the same tattoo that was on his own belly.

"Kakashi and I figured that what probably happens is that I sort of copy marks and tattoos once I activate those stupid 'powers' I guess. It's like a Kekkai Genkai, but without the previous ancestors. I guess this is how bloodlines start."

Naruto nodded. Through her speach Sakura had laughed and cried, and he noticed that she had changed. He knew about the whole ordeal with the hair, because he was there. But there were some new facts he hadn't known yet. He grabbed her hand across the table.

"I'm sorry Sakura. And I will make it up to you, I promise! And I don't go back on my promises, because that is my Nindo!"

As he finished, the girls and Kakashi came out of the kitchen. "So, I have another surprise. Kakashi already knows about it, and Naruto only a bit."

The girls' eyes gleamed with anticipation. "I have a summons contract, and I want you to meet all of them." she introduced the cats one by one, as she had ordered earlier. The girls really liked them and the cats liked them back. That was probably because of the constant petting, but let's not spoil their dream. The girls went to bed, as did most of the cats, and the adults decided to break the alcohol out.

They chatted and laughed and Sakura even offered Kakashi a house. He declined, saying that, unlike Naruto, he was no gold digger. Because Sakura had a month off, Kakashi had a month off, and Naruto had a two week forced leave because of a recent injury, So they all stayed up late and drank lots.

Once it was one a.m, they turned home. Naruto swaggered out of the door and kept yelling which house he was going to pick, while Kakashi lingered in the doorway.

"Thanks for dinner, it was really nice." Sakura smiled. "Thanks for the company, I needed it." they both laughed a bit, before they settled into a silence.

"You know, I meant it. You can pick a house too you know. We could call the compound "Tough Ass Ninja Compound" and show everyone!" Sakura made big motions with her hands to indicate the greatness of it all and Kakashi chuckled. He leaned against the doorframe.

"I'll think about it." he smiled. They just looked at each other for awhile, several minutes actually.

"Again, thanks for dinner." Kakashi moved away from the doorframe to leave, and halfway down the path he stopped, like he remembered that he ofcourse couldn't leave without his keys, and turned around. He walked up to Sakura, put a hand on her cheek, and kissed her through his mask.

She giggled, and he walked away smiling. "We should make this our normal greeting, people wouldn't know what they were seeing!"

Kakashi teased. She laughed.

"I'll hold you to that!" She wasn't even surprised he did that anymore. They had kissed without feeling behind it a couple of times now.

"Ditto!" she heard from near the compound gates, just before she was about to close the door.

~X~

The next morning, Sakura woke with a hangover, and a very awake Ayane on her bed.

Jumping. Screaming. Reminding her why she usually didn't drink alcohol. She got up and put a robe on. She told the cats that they could go scavenge, and made breakfast for the girls. Ayane sat down and started to eat slowly. Kotone came down fully clothed and sat at the table, but didn't eat anything.

"Eat." Sakura gestured with her spoon to the various cereals and other breakfast supplies.

"I don't do breakfast." Sakura started a stare off. "Eat, or I won't teach you today." the stare off lasted a while before Kotone reluctantly grabbed some cereals and promptly put her hand in, snatched a fist and stuffed her face. Sakura sighed.

"You show her how it's done, Ayane. Remember, else no lesson!" Sakura stood up and walked to the stairs.

"Kumiko, honey, are you awake?" she heard some mumbling above the stairs before a tired looking Kumiko appeared above the stairs. Her eyes were still closed and she walked down the stairs slowly.

"Yes, mum.." she opened her eyes, and saw Sakura at the bottom of the stairs. She gasped and her eyes widened. Tears sprung in her eyes and she ran back upstairs. Sakura followed her in hot pursuit. Once in the room, she found Kumiko crying on the bed. Sakura walked over and Kumiko started rambling all sorts of apologies to her.

Sakura put a hand on her head for comfort. "It's okay. You can call me whatever you want. Mother, or sister or teacher. I actually sort of like the sound of it. Mum."

Kumiko still sniffled. "You really don't mind? You look like my mum too, so it's sort of, well not normal but, well,"

Sakura nodded. "I get it, don't worry." Kumiko dried her tears and they went to get breakfast.

Soon after breakfast, Kakashi walked into the house.

"Ohayo, girls." he moved to the table and grabbed the chair next to Sakura. "Ohayo, Sakura." he moved and kissed her again like last night. "I said I'd hold you to it, remember."

Sakura sat there eyes opened wide. "God Kakashi, why did do that?" Kakashi put his elbow on the table and shrugged his shoulders. "Like you said, we could have a laugh."

Sakura raised her eyebrow. "And how do you suppose we do that?" Kakashi simply pointed to the other side of the table, where two baffled girls sat and one romanticized. The romanticized one, Kumiko, asked a question while the other two blubbered away.

"Are you two together now?" and Kakashi looked at Sakura and smiled a devilish smile. He aswered 'nope' and the looks they got were so hilarious that Sakura fell of her chair laughing.

"Okay, I'm in, this is too funny. Hey, hey, they don't even know about your reputation!" Sakura went into a fit of giggles again while thinking of probable faces of others. The girls got grumpy at being laughed at, so Sakura dried her tears of joy and Kakashi told then he had a surprise for them.

Kakashi had been sweet enough to go to the ninja clothing store, and had picked up three outfits for the girls to train in. "I told the sales woman how you looked, and she picked them out for you." the girls ran upstairs while Sakura cleaned the table, and got back when they were fully changed.

It all fit perfectly, and Sakura went to get the parcels she had wrapped up yesterday with the ninja gear. Soon they had it all figured out and Kakashi went off to train them on the compound training grounds. Once they were gone, the genin team arrived with her stuff. She showed them were most of it should go and showed off a bit by one handedly lifting a couch of the cart they had used.

They went and she had about 30 minutes of simply drinking tea before she heard the next knock. The door opened to a sea of orange, black and white, and only when Naruto disspelled the kage bunshins did she notice it was even him.

"I have a surprise for you." he ushered her out the doorway, still in her morning robe, and showed her one of the houses.

"I picked this one, if that's okay with you." they went inside, and Naruto's furniture was already there. "I did this in about two hours with two kage bunshins, it was really easy." She really loved the job he had done on the place.

"I found a way to repay you. If you're okay with it, I'd like to do the other houses as well." he grinned. He really did a nice job on these houses. "You really would like to do that?"

"Yeah, I'd love to. I think this is what they call a secret passion. Hehe." she smiled and hugged him.

"Thank you."

She left Naruto to do the decorating and went over to the Hokage tower. She still had an hour left before Kakashi returned with the girls.

She showed Tsunade multiple new techniques she had developed, and a smaller version of the sealing scroll she used for on the field. Afterwards she asked Tsunade to help her with the bloodline limit.

Once Sakura activated the seal, there were more marks that became visible. Where her normally unmarked cheek was, now ran a fine line from above her eye. It was the same as Kakashi's. And she had two jagged lines on her upper arms and lower back, and she remembered that Naruto got those marks from a whip a civilian used on him once.

Tsunade's forehead started tingling, and they both were sure that if Sakura didn't have the diamond on her forehead already, now she probably would. The mirrors reappeared instead of her iris, and Tsunade jutted down al the facts. They did a Doujutsu checklist, and it turned out that she could see aura's through walls and other things. Tsunade's aura was a soft baby pink. While Ibiki's, as he turned out to be in the next room, was dark purple.

Tsunade jutted it down, and Sakura got an idea. "Shishou. I'm not sure, but I think I know how it works."

Tsunade looked up from her paper and motioned for her to continue. "Well, the first time I activated it, I was with Kakashi and Naruto, and I could see the most horrible things in their life, and their most precious. What, if my affinity for genjutsu was also a result of the doujutsu, and it can have the same effect as Tsukuyomi, but different?"

Tsunade thought about it, and tapped her pen repeatedly to the paper. "So you're saying that if you activated it, you can create a personal nightmare for any of your opponents, but in a different setting then the Tsukuyomi one?"

"I'm not sure, but I think it could. And I think I can see aura's to see if someone is hostile or not." Sakura looked like she was seeing the world for the first time; she was looking around her with big eyes, taking it all in.

"And how does that work?" Tsunade was writing every word Sakura had said down.

"Well, you know that when it's hot and you look at the road, the air above it is rippling? It's the same with the auras. I see your outline, with a baby pink aura round it, and it's not moving. But I can see Ibiki in the interrogation room, and his aura is rippling like mad." Tsunade wrote it down and closed the map with the papers.

"Ok, let's do it like this. You come here every day for one and a half hour and we'll train on your bloodline limit. The rest of the time we'll talk about your medical achievements." Sakura nodded, and stood up. "Thanks, shishou. See you tomorrow!" and she vanished through the window. Tsunade sighed and banged a fist on her desk, rattling her bottle of sake and her cup.

"Can't anybody in this god dammed village use a door?"

_A/N: probably a lot of mistakes in this one. I typed it up on my mobile. :D am in France right now. Important note: I changed the first chapter a bit. Took out the chanting part, found it too much going fantasy for a Naruto verse fan fiction. Have a nice summer holiday! And reviews are VERY welcome! I NEED IDEAS!_


	9. Bummer!

The next few weeks went the same. On weekdays, Kakashi picked up the girls, and Sakura went to Tsunade. Once he dropped them off he stayed for a few minutes to answer her questions about their progress, and then she started their medical training. In the weekends, she spent the saterdays with the girls, and on Sunday the girls went to the academy to study for their genin exam, and she sparred with Kakashi to not get rusty. Two weeks flew by, and the girls passed their Genin exam with flying colors.

Because Kakashi and Sakura were on active duty as Team 19, and Naruto was training for ANBU exams, they got another sensei appointed. Sakura took the girls to the academy herself.

"Mom, who do you think our sensei is going to be?" Kumiko had kept calling her mom since the first time, and Ayane and Kotone picked it up after awhile. Kotone sometimes still called her 'Sakura', but Ayane and Kumiko called her mom like they didn't know any different.

"I don't know honey. I kept asking Iruka-sensei to tell me, but he didn't budge." Iruka had been their Sunday teacher, and he had been more than a bit surprised when she came to him to discuss a lesson plan for her 'daughters'. However he quickly warmed up to the idea and had told Sakura often that he was happy these girls got a chance. The girls were really talented, and picked up quickly. Iruka let them do the exam real early, and he wasn't let down.

Sakura walked into the main entrance and was bombarded with memories. She spent her entire school life hunting Sasuke, and she only lost friends because of it. When they walked into Iruka's classroom, Iruka was already waiting for them.

"Good, just on time." he smiled a little grimly. He was obviously still pissed about that one time that she had trusted Kakashi to bring them to school. They said their hello's and the girls got more and more nervous.

Iruka showed them to the anterior room where their teacher was waiting. Sakura walked behind the girls. She was also s bit excited to see who was going to be their sensei, and was pleased to see a good friend in the anterior room.

She was sure that the girls were going to be taught well. Iruka stood next to her as she watched the girls interact with their sensei.

"We thought it would be a good combo. Kakashi could teach them Ninjutsu, and you're teaching them Genjutsu, so this was the logical choice."

Sakura nodded. She already had thought that they would get a Taijutsu based sensei. She was just happy that it wasn't Gai or Lee.

"Yeah, Naruto will be happy too. It'll just take some time for me to get used to the -sensei suffix behind her name." she smiled.

She suddenly thought of something and motioned in the doorway so the girls' sensei could see her. "Hey, Hinata! Don't forget to do the bell test with them!"

Hinata turned around and smiled at her longtime friend. "Hi, Sakura, how are you?" Sakura smiled back and leaned against the doorframe as she had taken over from Kakashi. "Good, good, and you?"

"Very fine, thank you." suddenly tree girls crowded her.

"Mom, mom! Can Hinata-sensei eat with us tonight?"

Hinata looked at her questioningly. Sakura looked at her and mouthed 'later'. She smiled at the girls and nodded.

"Cool!" and then they went back to badgering Hinata.

After that the routine changed. The girls got taught by Hinata during the week, on Saturday they trained with Kakashi, and on Sunday with Sakura. Sakura and Kakashi used the rest of the week to spar and train together. Occasionally, Hinata gave them a day off, and they would spend the day with her, or Kakashi.

This particular day, Sakura had asked Hinata to give the girls a day off because she had to tell them that she had a long term mission coming up in a few days. She took them to a restaurant and told them that Naruto would watch them and that Hinata would make sure that everything went okay. They nodded, they might not like it, but they understood. This was their lifestyle too now.

Only on the way back did things get interesting. One of the civilian flats was on fire. She told the girls to stay close and asked around.

"What's going on?" the elderly woman she had asked the question sighed deep. "A pyromaniac set the lowest floor on fire, and no one could get out. A shinobi who lives on the fifth floor is getting everyone out, but he'll never make it on his own..."

Sakura turned around. "Kumiko, go alert Tsunade. Kotone, you go to the Jounin department, Ayane stay with the lady here, take care of all the survivors." she threw her equipment to Ayane so she could use it, and shredded her medical apron.

She quickly jumped onto the second floor and checked all the apartments. Once she noticed that they were all empty she moved to the next. Once on the fourth floor she found a survivor and quickly picked him up and took him out. She kept going until she reached a door which was being banged from the inside.

"Hold on! I'll break the door out! Please step back a bit!" the banging stopped and she kicked the door with a chakra enforced kick. She walked in and met eye to eye with a very dirty Kakashi. "Sakura?" she immediately saw why he couldn't have opened the door by himself. In his arms was an elderly woman, unconscious but breathing. She quickly scanned the woman for other injuries.

"She only has severe smoke poisoning. Ayane is outside with my gear. Get here there; use the blue scroll, and the third seal. There's some special stuff for smoke inhalation. GO!" he nodded and jumped through the window at the end of the hall.

Through the same window came Naruto, Genma and Ino, and together they got the remaining occupants out.

~X~

The building had collapsed and luckily, no one was hurt. She checked all the survivors for injuries and sent most of them to the hospital for more tests. Once everybody was cared for or otherwise healthy she started searching for Kakashi. First she saw Ayane's blue hair, and later she also saw Kakashi's silver mop. She went over there, and saw that the elder woman he had rescued was sitting up already. She did a quick scan again and healed some damaged lung tissue a bit.

"Thank you dear." the old lady was still a bit weak, but duly grateful. "No problem. I wanted to do all I could." she smiled a bit. Ayane offered to bring the lady to the hospital where she would have to get checked, and Sakura told her to bring Kotone and Kumiko along.

Kakashi sat down on the ground and let out a huge sigh. "That was close; I really was just in time." Sakura sat down next to him and checked him too. He wasn't hurt, just a little smudged. "Thanks for helping out. I really couldn't have done it on my own."

"Don't thank me, I was passing by. I could hardly say, 'Hey a burning building, might as well let everybody burn to shreds!' you know." he laughed a bit before he turned serious again.

"Is Mikoto going to be okay?" for a moment she wasn't sure who he meant. "Oh. You mean the elderly lady? Yeah. She'll be fine."

"Good." Kakashi coughed a bit and she clapped his back. The other shinobi were cleaning some of the debris up, and she watched as piles of memories were uncovered. She saw a lot of burned pictures in the debris. So many lives were completely destroyed by one person...

"Did you just meet her, or did you know her before?" Kakashi nodded and answered with a rough throat.

"She was my neighbor." Sakura nodded. She could see how the old lady asked a favor or two off him when he was off missions. She herself didn't get landed in such situations because she used to live in an all shinobi flat, and now a compound.

Suddenly something dawned on her. "Kakashi, you didn't live here, right..? She was your old neighbor?" he smiled weakly. "I think I might have to take you up on your offer..." oh god. It hadn't occurred to her once that he might have been the shinobi who had lived on the fifth floor.

"Oh god Kakashi! I'm so sorry! Sure! You don't mind staying in our spare bedroom while we finish a house for you right?" she told a little lie here. Naruto had already finished all the houses, but they were all empty. Sakura didn't think it was a good idea to put a man who lost everything into an empty house. Plus, Kakashi had stayed in that room before, and had a few spare clothes over there.

"Yeah, sure." he was really quiet, and she moved him up to go visit Mikoto and pick up the girls. Once at the hospital, they were already waiting for them near the entrance. "Hello, I haven't properly introduced myself yet. My name is Mikoto." she smiled and gently shook the hand that Sakura extended. "Sakura, pleased to meet you." she asked the girls if everyone had checked out okay and they did.

"Mikoto-san, where are you going to live?" the woman smiled. She was awfully cheerful for someone who had lost her house. "Oh, child. Don't worry. I finally have an excuse to go mooch of that grandson of mine. He never visits..." she shook her head a bit.

"I'll live over there until my insurance pays out and I can get a new house." the girls wanted to bring her home, and she was surprised. Normally they weren't this helpful. She agreed and the girls and Mikoto stood up to go. She could tell that Mikoto was feeding the girls candy, but she couldn't care right now.

For no obvious reason, Kakashi jumped from the bench and sprinted down the street. Sakura told the girls to meet her at home and took off in hot pursuit. Once she came into the main street she saw a crowd gathered around something. She moved through and in the middle she saw an angry Kakashi holding down a frightened man.

She turned her eyes on and saw that the man's aura was calmer than most people's, even when faced with an angry Kakashi. But more importantly, his aura was a bright red. Normally the colors ranged from baby pink to a very very dark purple, and she had never seen a red aura before.

"DON'T deny it! I can smell it all over you!" Kakashi shook him up and down. "I-I-I don't know what you're talking about." Kakashi rattled him once more. "DON'T LIE!" she had never seen Kakashi this way. Even weirder was that the man showed fear in his voice and face, but his aura stayed the same. She scanned the crowd, and saw another red aura moving out of the crowd. She looked at the one Kakashi had pinned down, and saw that the aura was fading fast.

"Kakashi! It's a bunshin!" Kakashi looked at the man, and saw he was smiling like mad. Kakashi ripped his forehead protector up, and confirmed that it was a clone.

"Shit, where'd he gone to?" Sakura was already parting through the crowd while Kakashi was checking the bunshin. Once she was out, she jumped the man from behind and tackled him to the ground.

Kakashi came after her quickly, and they hauled the man to Tsunade. They banged through the door, and threw the man into the room, and against Tsunade's desk. Tsunade herself only looked mildly irritated. "What did he do?" Kakashi glared at the man on the floor. "He lighted a civilian flat on fire. It took four Jounin to save everyone from the building." Tsunade looked at them and folded her hands under her chin.

"What's the evidence?" she got a file out of her desk and flipped it open. "He smelled strongly of petroleum and sulfur. He's not one of the survivors, because I know all the occupants of the flat, and he doesn't smell of smoke." Tsunade scribbled it down.

"He also has a bright red aura and it's extremely calm. Pyromaniacs have to light things on fire because of building stress and the action gives them an extreme calm right after." Tsunade nodded. "I haven't seen any human being with such a calm aura before." Tsunade nodded again and wrote it all down. She dismissed them and two ANBU came to pick the man up.

Once they were outside and were walking back to the house again, Sakura started talking again.

"It's really inconvenient, but I have to report to Tsunade tomorrow for a long term mission. I reckon it won't be too long since I have the 'parental' status now, but could you keep an eye on the girls while I'm gone?" He was calmer since they had caught the pyromaniac, and was more himself. He nodded and smiled a bit. "Sure."

They chatted a bit about insurance and he told her that his most precious objects were in another place, thankfully. They talked and she got him to laugh actually. And once they were at the compound things were almost normal. She told the girls what had happened and they went through their normal routine. Naruto and Hinata were coming over for dinner to talk about the mission, so they ate with seven people.

Halfway through the dinner they heard a knock on the door. Sakura looked at the door and Kumiko went to open it. It turned out to be a very familiar Chuunin, Konohamaru. He was happy to see Naruto again, and they hugged and clapped backs for a while.

"So what brings you here gaki?" Konohamaru scowled. "I'm sixteen now you idiot." Naruto ruffled his hair and Konohamaru stepped back to straighten his hair. "Anyway, I have a mission summons here." Sakura had expected it, and stuck her hand out. She got a scroll, but so did Hinata. "And I have a summons to the Hokage." those went to Kakashi and Naruto.

She quickly read through the scroll.

_"Haruno Sakura, S-class mission._

_Duration: 3/4 year minimal,_

_Location: Konoha._

_Report to your Hokage at nine a.m. for your mission briefing. You may only include mission details to close familly members and following participants" _

Participants? She had never been in a mission with 'participants' before. She read the list with names and saw Hinata's but also Ino's names. She looked at Hinata across the table and Hinata shrugged her shoulders. She looked at her girls and smiled. "Well, you better be happy because the mission is in Konoha. I'll probably be able to stay here." the girls smiled. They wanted to go play with the cats and she let them go. Kakashi and Naruto were reading their scrolls intently.

Hinata talked a bit about what the mission could be about and Sakura said that she had known about the mission for a while, but not what it entailed. While they were talking, Naruto stood up and moved behind Sakura.

"I have to go. Me and Kakashi have to report right away." he kissed her on the cheek and moved over to Hinata. "I'll see you tomorrow." he kissed her on the lips and Sakura had to do all she could not to let her jaw drop to the floor. Kakashi saluted to Hinata and moved over to kiss Sakura. Naruto had seen it before, but Hinata's jaw did drop to the floor. Kakashi smiled when he saw her face and Sakura was doing all she could not to laugh. Naruto whispered something in her ear and her face turned into a scowl.

"That is so awful to do! Though, I must say you had me there.." Her scowl disappeared and Sakura turned to Kakashi. "We should start taking pictures. They could see their own faces." they said their goodbyes and the guys left. Sakura offered Hinata to stay over and she agreed. They went upstairs so Sakura could grab some sleeping gear for Hinata and offered her to sleep in this bedroom.

"No, Sakura. You have to sleep in your own bed. I'm simply a guest."

"I'm not tired yet, and I can see you are, so I'll sleep in the spare bedroom. I can rummage around downstairs and you can sleep." Hinata hesitated and Sakura kept pushing until she gave in. Hinata went to sleep and Sakura went downstairs with her own sleeping gear. She put the girls to bed and sat down at the kitchen table, mission scroll in hand.

She couldn't work out why there were so many people involved in this mission, or why this mission was being held in Konoha. Also was the tone setting of the scroll a bit weird. No 'Teammates' but 'Participants'. She beat herself up about it until it was half past eleven and changed into her clothes and went to sleep in the spare room. She fell asleep instantly.

~X~

Sakura woke up around one a.m, because the door of the bedroom was being opened. She heard some clattering and Kakashi appeared in the doorway. She grunted and threw herself back on the bed.

"Oh god. I forgot." Kakashi flicked the light on and shed his jounin vest on a chair. Sakura explained why she was in the bedroom she had offered him.

"I feel so stupid! How could I forget that you were staying over?" Kakashi stripped to his boxers as she had seen him do many times. Kakashi shrugged and motioned her to make room for him.

"It doesn't matter, a lot of things happened today. And besides, we can share right?" She nodded. It wasn't the smallest bed in the world and they had shared before. He got into the bed and finally settled with their faces turned to each other. They said goodnight and went to sleep.

The next morning she woke up spooned to Kakashi. This always happened to them, even when they were still Team 7. She had that effect apparently, because the same had happened with Naruto many times. She noticed he was already awake and she stretched like a cat against his body. "Good morning to you too Sakura." he let her go and moved out of the bed to get dressed.

"Mmh? Oh, g'morning." she moved up reluctantly and also got dressed. She moved into the kitchen, Kakashi right behind her. She stopped in the doorway, and had to close her eyes to the very bright kitchen. Once she opened them again and saw Hinata standing there, making breakfast for everyone.

"Ohayo, mina!" god, why couldn't Hinata just have a really bad morning temper. She was way too bright in the mornings. She felt Kakashi walk into her back. And knew he had the same problem she had. She even heard him mutter 'fuck' under his breath. She couldn't open her eyes yet, and asked Kakashi with closed eyes to wake the girls for breakfast. The chest disappeared from her back, and she opened her eyes a bit to see a fully decked table for five, and Hinata baking pancakes on the stove.

"I didn't know that Kakashi was staying over, so I'll have to put another plate up." Sakura moved over to help her. Together they made the final preparations, and Sakura put up the extra plate for Kakashi.

"So, you and Kakashi aren't together?"

"Nope"

"Okay and where did Kakashi sleep last night?"

"The spare room."

"And where did you sleep tonight?"

"The spare room..."

"And you're not together?"

"Nope"

"Explain. Because you were quite adamant in getting yourself into the spare room." Sakura groaned and face palmed herself. She sighed and explained.

"I totally forgot he would be staying over yesterday night. He came in after his meeting and we decided that it was rubbish to wake the whole house up over sleeping arrangements. So." Hinata looked at her suspiciously, but let it slide.

They finished everything and Sakura was about to call Kakashi and the girls when she heard giggles come from the hallway. She heard a male grunt, hopefully Kakashi's, and a muffled 'help' from the same man.

Kakashi walked into the kitchen with three girls hanging onto him. He called for help again, but Kumiko's hand on his masked mouth only made it come out as a mumble. She heard Hinata giggle behind her and the girls were laughing away.

Kotone, who was hanging on his shoulder, explained what was happening. "K-Kakashi claimed we c-couldn't take him d-d-down, and K-K-Kumiko started by jumping o-on his neck. Me a-and Ayane are o-only hel-ping." Sakura giggled. Kotone was being swung around by Kakashi, and every time she hit his side with her body, she stuttered a bit.

"Girls, could you let him go so we can eat breakfast? Hinata, ehm, Hinata_-sensei_ made pancakes." The girls immediately let Kakashi go and took their seat at the table. She passed Kumiko with a plate of pancakes and stopped to whisper something.

"If you're sweet to Kakashi while I'm at my briefing, I'll tell you his weak point."

Kumiko laughed evilly and whispered to Kotone and Ayane. The three of them were silent the entire time during breakfast, and even while Sakura changed and left with Hinata.

Sakura could have sworn that she heard a battle cry come from the house once she and Hinata had left, but she wasn't sure. Even as she heard a male shriek, that might have come from Kakashi, she didn't turn back. Besides, Kakashi had been complaining about the three of them being lazy bums on their days off.

Bummer for him.

_A/N: a short chapter compared to the others, but the next chapter will announce a big turn in the story. It was actually what I was working towards when I first started writing this fic. On another note, I wrote this chapter on holiday too (and on my mobile phone), so I uploaded my last two chapters one week apart. This won't become my regular update speed! All chapters are 4000+ words. I just have too much time on my hands right now. Furthermore nothing important. Tips are needed and so on! Please review!_


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